Waterblooded
by Caina
Summary: Five years after the Avatar returned, the newfound peace is disrupted when an attempted assassination leaves him at the brink of death. Desperately, the Fire Lord calls on the mysterious healer Hama and her apprentice to save his life. Kataangst.
1. healer

_**Disclaimer**: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender._

* * *

**1, healer**

At first, when the mysterious old innkeeper-cum-healer and her equally mysterious companion asked for complete, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the Avatar, the Fire Lord laughed.

When he realized that she was indeed serious, his laugh morphed into a roar of refusal.

The old woman bowed, her grey hair falling into her eyes even more, completely obscuring her face - and its expression - from his view. "Then there is nothing we can do for him."

She had hardly taken two steps when the clash of spears barred her path. Her companion had not moved at all, her long veil swaying in the hot breeze that fanned the Fire Lord's chamber.

"You dare defy me?" He demanded.

"Who am I," she replied, her voice croaking in tune with the whisper-whisper sound her skirts made as she turned back to him, "to defy the Fire Lord? I am only a vessel. The spirits that use me to heal will only work in a specific manner. If I were to try to heal the Avatar in any other way, it would be in vain."

For the first time since the strange pair came before her husband, the Fire Lady spoke, "Who do you think you should fear the most, your Fire Lord or your healing spirits?"

Scarred fingers rushed to cover the wizened lips. Perhaps the woman was shocked, or horrified, and was trying to compose herself.

Or perhaps she was just laughing.

There was a tremble in her voice when she spoke that could have been either.

"The Fire Lord holds all the world in the palm of his hand. If he wishes my death, he has only to say. For only a fool who does not know how much the Avatar means to my Lord, will raise his hopes only to dash them to the ground."

He could feel his wife's eyes boring into the side of his face, demanding that he not let this woman be rewarded for her defiance. But every moment they spent deliberating was a moment that reduced the chances of Aang ever waking up again. If this Hama's plans were to kill Aang, she would only be hastening the inevitable.

In the end, Zuko did not really have any other choice.

"It shall be as you have said, old Hama," the Fire Lord declared. "But by my throne, if Avatar Aang dies in your care, you had better die with him."

Her hands fell from her face as she mumbled her thanks, her faith in the spirits, her devotion to the Fire Lord, to the Avatar…

Her companion raised her hands a little, and blue eyes darted out from the veil, like the quick flash of knives, before they vanished again.


	2. hourglass

**2, ****hourglass**

The window-drapes were drawn tight against the noon-day sun and inquisitive eyes. In the alcoves overheard, torches burnt brightly, shedding their red-tinted glow on the unconscious Avatar.

He lay spread-eagled on the mattress, the once-bright red linen sheet already turned dark with sweat. His blood-less, parchment-colored skin was dotted with marks: the livid angry indigo of the arrows of his race; the red, star-shaped scars where the lightning had entered his spine and left his foot; the faded white scars that circled his wrists and his ankles.

As the Fire Lord promised, they were completely alone. Hot towels, jugs of water, jasmine tea, special spices and incense had been left for them as they requested and then the servants, the guards and even the sages who had stood in this room praying night and day for seven sunrises, had vacated the entire eastern wing of the Royal Palace.

A slim, brown hand reached out from the veil and rested against the Avatar's cheek.

"You're thinking about how easy it could be, aren't you?" The old woman whispered.

The girl jumped, snatching her hand back as quickly as if it had touched fire.

Hama laughed from where she knelt by the water jug, her back to the dying man and her apprentice. "I know you too well, my child. You are thinking that this is an opportunity you may never have again, that there is no need taking unnecessary chances."

The other was silent, the only indication that she had heard the old woman was the snapping of her knuckles as her fists clenched.

"At least you're_ trying_ to hold your temper," Hama said dryly.

"What if I'm right? What if this is the only chance I get?"

Her weak bones protested as Hama rose to her feet and walked to wear the girl stood. If malevolence was enough, the blue eyes that stared down at the Avatar were enough to kill him.

Hama's old claw-like hand reached for the smoother, stronger fist of her apprentice and she held onto it, smoothening the near-invisible veins until the fingers unclenched.

"Don't taint your vengeance, my child. You have not come this far to let one moment of anger ruin everything we have worked for all these years."

Her frame was still too rigid but finally, the girl nodded slowly.

The two worked swiftly enough. The dark red of the lightning scars seemed to pulse, echoing the dominant tones of the room, the colors of Nation that he had so allied himself with. Neither woman had any great love for the Fire Sages but Hama and her apprentice had to admit that if not for the Sages's skill, the Avatar would have been lost long before now.

On the first touch against his skin, the healing water simmered.

"You know what you have to do."

Bright blue eyes looked up in alarm. "No, Mother-"

Hama's finger on her lips shushed the girl. "Yes. _You_ are the one that will have to do this. _You_ are the one with the power. Not these old bones. I will just be a distraction now."

"What if I...?"

"Fail?"

She shook her head mutely. Hama smiled.

"Kill him? Then that will be your choice, too, my child. Whatever you become after this night - the woman who killed the Avatar or the one who brought him back to life - the glory will belong completely to you. Gently, she brushed back a loose braid of hair and rested her hand against her ward's cheek. Whatever you decide, dear daughter, I will stand by you. I will protect you as I have protected you all these years. I will not forsake you."

The girls eyes were still shining with something - fear or entreaty, Hama could not say - until Hama firmly shut the door behind herself.

She ignored the suspicious gazes from the portraits as she walked down the corridor. Carefully, she lowered herself to the chair waiting for her there. Her eyes glanced at the hourglass in the alcove.

After years of training and waiting and planning and hoping, it was now out of Hama's hands. Only time and Katara would decide what happened next – to the Avatar and to the world, as they knew it.


	3. awakening

**_Author's Note_: **_You have no idea how happy I am to finally make this update! FF-net had a bug of some sort and I was going spare! If you saw multiple chapter alerts, that was probably a side effect of that. Thanks to all those who wrote to encourage me. Hope you enjoy the new revised chapters. (BTW: if you check my author's profile, you'll see the link to a new Discussing Waterblooded forum that I just started. It's open to everyone and I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts.)_

* * *

**3, ****awakening**

Aang woke with his arms full of soft, brown skin, long, silky hair brushing against his chest. He stared up into her blue eyes and for a moment, he truly believed that he had died and gone to Paradise.

Then those blue eyes narrowed into slits and the moment ended. She was out of his arms and on her feet, water flying into her hands and ice daggers in his face before he even registered the fact that he had reached for her, followed after her, instinctively.

"Ow!" He shouted as the blades grazed his cheek. They caused him more surprise than pain. The real pain was in his legs, his spine, his entire body. Now that the rush of adrenaline that had taken him to his feet had receded, he was fast becoming aware of the fact that his entire body was throbbing in agony. He swayed, groping for the wall.

"You'd better sit down." He turned blindly to see her where she stood, safe in the far corner of the room, almost every inch of skin obscured by a long dark robe that started from her neck and hid her feet and a veil that fell almost to her waist obscured her face. Her voice was as cold as the ice shards melting beside his feet. "Avatar or not, your body will still need time to heal itself completely."

"Ka… Katara?" He asked because he couldn't… daren't… assume. He had dreamed of her too many times, seized on vague hope only to have it crushed ruthlessly. The pain in his muscles was completely insignificant to the painful beating of his heart.

Her veil rustled and seemed to mask her even further but not before he saw the widening of those blue eyes. She said nothing.

"Katara," he repeated, more firmly. His legs made him feel like if he was walking on knives, the pain radiating from his arrows to his very core. But he just had to… if he could just… His hand reached out desperately. She just stood there, her very warmth drawing him to her and he thought that she would let him touch her.

If this was Paradise, it was a very ironic one. He could almost feel the warmth of her skin on his fingertips when, once again, she flew out of his reach. The slam of the door cut sharper than her water knives. With nothing to sustain him, he collapsed where he stood.

"Katara," he gasped. And before oblivion took him, he wondered – not for the first time – why being all powerful was never enough to give him the things he wanted the most.

* * *

Hama took one look at the blue eyes that could not return her gaze, at the hands twisting in the veil and she knew.

"I couldn't do it." Katara's mouth twisted around the whisper as if she was holding back tears. Or loathing.

"You couldn't kill him either."

A shudder. "I tried…"

Hama didn't think so but this was not the time. She looked at the sand dial. They still had a few hours. "Is he awake?"

Once again, she noticed the blue eyes shifting, flickering to the door where the Avatar lay defenseless, and flickering away. "Yes. He's recovering quickly."

"But not quickly enough to stop this," Hama said grimly. Her arms were already rising, her finger curling into the familiar forms of compulsion.

She wasn't in the least surprised when Katara's hands reached out, sheathing the claws with her own.

"No."

She wasn't surprised. But that didn't stop her from being completely furious. "You are acting the fool! You yourself said that we would never get another chance like this."

"I may be a fool," Katara said and this time there was no disguising the tears in her voice, "but you said it would be my vengeance to give. You_ promised_ me that."

It had been a long time since she had tested her strength against her apprentice. On the night of the full moon, in this dark, flame-lit corridor in the heart of the Fire Lord's palace, with the portraits of Fire Royals watching on passively and the Avatar gathering strength a few feet away, Hama knew she did not want to. She let Katara push her arms back to her sides before she spoke.

"I can see now that it was a foolish promise made to a foolish child. But I will hold myself to it because I know that later, of the two of us, it is you who will regret this more."

Katara looked away. The flame light flickered through the veil, reflected against the wet streaks on her face. "You don't have to tell me that."

Hama looked away, impatient with both her apprentice and herself for the sympathy she could not help but feel for the younger woman. "Unless you wish to speak to the Avatar when he wakes" – Katara shuddered at this – "the sooner the Fire Lord hears news of his champion's miraculous recovery, the sooner we leave this forsaken place."


	4. craving

**4, ****craving**

"How can you be so sure?"

The Avatar glared at him. Or tried to curse Zuko with his eyes, Zuko wasn't sure.

Zuko threw his hands up with frustration. "Yes, I know I have asked the question a dozen times before but you still haven't been able to convince me how you can be so certain that a girl you met briefly five years ago is the woman that you saw in your half-deluded state a few days ago."

Unexpectedly, Aang smirked. "I didn't see her _briefly_."

It took Zuko a moment to process that. Then he instinctively threw his hand over his eyes in horror. "Oh my goodness! Spare me the details!"

Aang's smirk widened and he blushed at the same time. "Take my word for it, it's her. And it's not just _that_. I knew her. Here." Zuko lowered his hand to watch Aang tap his heart.

"What do you want me to do? I've tried summoning her and her old grandmother and they've declined. Would you like me to trump up charges against them to get them arrested and dragged here by force?"

"Not them. Just her."

Zuko stared and Aang stared back unflinchingly. Zuko realized with a thrill of horror that the Avatar was perfectly serious.

"I could do that," the Fire Lord managed to say between clenched teeth. "I could place transparently fake charges on the women who brought the Avatar back from the brink of death. Then I could sit down and wait for the people to tear me to pieces."

Aang had gone back to cursing him with his eyes. "Isn't it nice that you're only concerned about public opinion when it doesn't affect what _you _want?"

"How dare-"

"I won't ask if I could do this myself and you know that! I can't leave the Palace. I can barely walk across my own room!"

"Aang…"

"You owe me. I've never asked for anything before now."

Every bit of commiseration Zuko felt had flown out of his body with a big whoosh at the 'you owe me' part. "Which part of saving your life did my debt not cover?"

"You want to keep score? How many times have I had to save _your_ miserable hide?" Aang snapped.

Zuko felt the hot air building up beneath his ribs. A few years ago, he would have given it free rein, let his temper take its most natural course. A few years ago, he had had to stop doing that because he learnt the hard way that the Avatar could and would literally burn his own rage from him.

He turned away from the sick bed so that he was staring out at the gardens and not Aang's annoying face. He breathed shallowly, tamping down the hot rush of air until it had calmed to a tepid draught.

Just to be safe though, he kept his back to the other man. "Take a moment to think this through. Your" – just in time he bit down on the first word choice 'infatuation' and the next one 'obsession' – "Water tribe girl did not seem happy to see you. She won't be happier if she's brought here against her will."

"She healed me. She did – we did –"

"Yes, you said so. You also said you weren't fully conscious until the next evening. How much of what you remember that night was fact or just the product of your fantasies?"

"What? You think I _imagined_…"

"I think that for as long as I've known you, you've been all about this girl. And now, you think you've found her – "

"I don't _think_, Zuko!"

"– and you will have her by any means necessary. But what about her? How does she feel about you? Because regardless of her saving your life and whatever else may or may not have happened between you that night, a woman doesn't show she cares for a man by leaving him half-naked on the floor, squirming like a worm in pain!"

It was a testimony to the Avatar's hard-won control that the only thing Zuko felt was a sharp gust of wind forcing its way out of the windows. They barely even rattled.

He turned around.

The smirk had long gone. Even the arrow on his forehead seemed to droop.

Zuko struggled with his pity. And failed. He gave a loud sigh. "I can," he said slowly, grudgingly, "assign spies to watch her and the old woman. They will not interfere with them but they'll keep track of them, and _influence_ events so that it will be impossible for them to leave the Nation."

He wasn't sure but he thought Aang smiled a little at the 'influence'.

"And when you're fully recovered, she'll still be here for you to decide on the course of action to take."

Aang pretended to consider this for a moment. "I guess I'll have to make do with that," he said at last.

Zuko guessed that was as close to a 'thank you' that he'd get from Aang. With a half-mocking bow, he said, "It's my pleasure to serve the Avatar. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

He was halfway out the door, when Aang's voice stopped him.

"I have a chance, don't I? With her, I mean."

Zuko couldn't help smiling. "Of course, you do, you're the Avatar." He was only half-joking.

Aang frowned. "That's not such a good thing, these days. People outside the Fire Nation don't always understand why I did the things I did."

"Most people see reason after a while."

"She will, won't she? I mean, it's not like she'd have any _personal _reason to dislike me, will she?" Aang's voice was anxious.

_(Red snow. Igloos turned black with smoke. An old woman's dying screams. ) _

Zuko looked away so Aang could not see the way his smile vanished _(like smoke)_. "Why ever should she?"


	5. confessions

**5, confession****s**

"As long as they don't interfere with us, they are not our enemies."

"I don't like being watched. I hate it. I hate them."

"Don't provoke yourself into doing something rash."

"So we just let them follow us everywhere?"

"What choice do we have? The Fire Lord was not so interested in the eccentric old inn-keeper and her granddaughter before. Oh that he knew what little threat we are to him."

"Will you never let me forget that?"

"Never!"

Katara drew back sharply, her eyes widening. Then she looked away but not before her face twisted unhappily.

Hama bit back the words she would have said, apologetic, cajoling words and turned back to the stove. For long minutes, the silent tension thickened with the bubbling stew. Then the girl got up from her stool and left the kitchen.

It was a new moon that night and the windows were shut tight against the pitch-black night sky. These were the nights when Hama would feel every absent ray of the moon's light in her bones, in her scars, and she would wonder how many more moons she'd live to see. Fighting with Katara, no matter how subtly, only wearied her further. There were many times that she wondered if she wouldn't have been better off without her fellow Southern tribeswoman.

Then Hama would remember her age, and the grievances that she'd never have the strength of righting without the skill and power of the younger girl.

The stew was just about done when Katara returned. Hama took one look at her downcast eyes and smiled.

"I'm sorry, Sifu," Katara whispered.

"You've said so already, my child."

"I don't think I can say it enough. I…you've done so much for me and the one chance I had to repay you, I threw it away. I've let everyone down."

"It was never about repaying _me_, Katara," Hama said sternly. When the girl flinched, Hama sighed and said more softly, "You may get another chance. I don't think the Fire Lord is watching us out of idle curiosity."

The blue eyes lit up with curiosity. "What do you mean?"

She would regret asking that soon, Hama thought wryly.

She turned a piercing gaze at her ward so that there would be no hiding the truth, no dodging from the answer. It was time to ask the question that had been burning on Hama's lips for the past two weeks.

"It must have taken ten, maybe twelve hours to revive the Avatar once the sun set. You chose not to blood-bend him and you certainly didn't kill him. So… _what did you do with him between his awakening and when you left his chambers?_"

The answer was so plain, so stark in Katara's face that Hama almost wished she hadn't asked.

"I… He was even farther gone than we estimated. I needed to… he needed…"

"You want to lie to _me_ about _healing_?"

Tears filled Katara's eyes and she looked to the ground. "I'm so, so sorry."

With bones creaking, Hama rose to her feet. She walked around the girl to the cupboard, reaching for the wooden bowls with some effort.

"I ought to have known this would happen. I'm an old woman, but I still have eyes. I can still appreciate beauty. He's a sight to behold, the young Avatar. It is not just his wisdom or his power that has turned the hearts of many people to the Fire Nation. I don't think you're the first young woman to change her view of the world because of Avatar Aang's smile."

"I'm so ashamed," Katara whispered.

"Perhaps it is for the best," Hama continued, bending down to the stove again, her eyes firmly away from Katara. "The Fire Nation preaches against vengeance, that it only fragments the fragile world further. There is wisdom there, isn't it? Perhaps the Lotus is going about this the wrong way. Why do we seek to avenge those who have been long gone?"

Sharply, Katara's fist brushed against her eyes and she turned a hard, furious look on Hama's bowed head. "You don't mean that!"

"I think I do," said Hama quietly as she carefully ladled stew into the bowl. "I'm an old woman. I don't want to die with the weight of unquenched vengeance in my heart. I want to let it go, one way or the other."

"You want to let it go," Katara said incredulously. "Your brothers and sisters… My… _Our entire tribe!_"

"I don't have a choice, do I? I am old. You are in love with the Avatar."

"I am not in love with him!"

Only then did the old woman look at the girl. "Do not lie to me or to yourself, child."

"I'm not lying to anyone! It was just one night. I was… he is… well, you said you know how he is. And he was also defenseless and vulnerable and…and I was confused." Her voice trailed off weakly.

Hama was silent and her unspoken words served their purpose. The girl's always-volatile temper exploded.

"How can you think I love him? I hate the Avatar!" Katara spat. The stew, which had been simmering under the left over heat from the stove, had started boiling. Warily, Hama took a few steps back. "I'd wish him dead if I didn't want him to suffer in this life first!"

"But you couldn't do it, child. Nor would you let me. Dear Katara, perhaps you should…"

But the girl was on her feet already. "You may want to _forget_. You may want to make _peace_" – she said the word as if it was dirty in her mouth – "with him, with the lot of them. But I never shall! I shall never forgive him for what he did to our people. And I shall wreck such pain on the Avatar's world that by the time I am through with him, he will _beg_ me to end his life!" She actually snarled at the end, her teeth bared and furious like the white wolf mascot of their people.

The kitchen door flew open before Katara reached it. It slammed shut behind her, beads of moisture condensing along the hinges.

Some of the now-simmering stew had splashed on the floor. Hama clucked as she fetched a rag, her long grey strands hiding the smile on her face.


	6. knife

**6, knife**

The scimitar's hilt was ivory-carved and encrusted with a single moonstone. Its curved blade was wide, thin and deadly sharp.

Aang thrust forward, sensation extending to the tip of the blade until he could _feel_ the softness of the drapes. A gust of wind pushed the cloth out of reach and without moving his arm, he let the blade reach further until it pierced straight through it.

Zuko had almost given up teaching him sword fighting because he was impatient with what he called Aang's cheating. Eventually, they had struck a truce and Aang found out that the art of the blade was as compelling in its own way as bending. Though of course, the few times Aang had had to use the weapon to defend himself, he had done so with every other skill that he had.

He was just strong enough for the simplest forms and with one final thrust, he fell back into the default stance and raised the blade to his face. He caught his own gaze. The thick black hair that covered his crown was always a surprise, regardless of the fact that for most of the years of what he called his second life he had gotten used to not feeling the wind on his scalp.

Behind his reflection, a tall, thin man in the formal wears of a Palace aide loomed.

"Avatar Aang."

Aang turned and returned the customary bow. He straightened up but the man's head was still bent. "I am to inform you that you have a visitor."

"Please stand," Aang said with a sigh. One of these days he would get used to the reverence people showed him. One of these days. "And tell my guest that I am not well enough to receive anyone today."

"Yes, I know, Avatar Aang," replied the man quickly. He stood upright as Aang had requested, but even now, his neck was bending with every word. "But the Fire Lord left instructions that you were to be alerted if this particular visitor were to come by."

"He did, did he?" Aang asked rhetorically, his mind running through the names and faces of emissaries and representatives from the Fire colonies and vassal states expected during the Solstice festivities and trying to remember if Zuko had indicated one that would need special 'Avatar treatment'. "Who is this person?"

"Kya of the Lee Vale, granddaughter and apprentice of Hama the innkeeper."

The scimitar fell to the floor with a clatter. The aide moved back hastily as a sudden gust of wind sent it skidding to the far corner of the room.

* * *

It had been difficult coming here. Many times during the long journey from the inn to the Capital city, the weeks old summons clutched in her damp fists, she had almost lost her nerve. It was only the memory of a few nights' past and the conversation with Hama that had kept her going.

There was a time when Katara of the Southern Water Tribe thought that her rage and pain would burn her from inside, when she thought that she would never get a moment's peace from the memory of her loss.

How strange that now she needed an old woman's words of defeat to stir in her the old fire.

The room she was asked – ordered politely – to wait in was in a different style from the one she had first been ushered into on her arrival at the Palace. It was smaller, cozier with ivory and pink hues, instead of the usual dark red Fire Palace motif. The Palace itself was every bit as imposing and ostentatious as she had dimly registered that first time when she came here with Hama, offering their services to the Avatar. Then she had been too anxious to get through the Fire Lord's interrogation, to find the Avatar and have her way with him.

The blood rushed to her cheeks at that particular turn of words and she clenched her fists in a sudden, spastic movement.

"Would you like a glass of water, my lady?" asked the other aide who had remained standing by the door all this while.

"No, I'm fine."

Try as she might to turn her thoughts elsewhere, as usual now that they had touched on that night, they insisted on dwelling it. What had possessed her? Why had she just…her face burned even more as she remembered that long strong body with the tattoos blue and so beautiful against that white skin; the whipcord muscles in his shoulders and how they felt under her hands; the kisses…long, deep, drugging kisses…

She pressed her hands tight together, as if she could kill the memories with them. It had been a foolish impulse, nothing logic or reasoning could explain. She had always been, well, curious; and his physical appeal was legendary, then coupled with his vulnerability, his blind reaching for her. Hama had always said that her instinctive nature to sympathize with the most undeserving people would get her into trouble.

And it was at the memory of _that_ that the trembling stopped…

"Katara."

… and started again at the sound of that voice saying her name.

Heart pounding, Katara looked up into Avatar Aang's face. Now that he could stand, he was even taller, and impossibly leaner than he had been the first time she met him. The dark hair certainly had not been there five years ago. But still it struck her now – as it had done almost a month ago – how really little in appearance he was changed. If she had passed him in a busy market street in New Ozai, she would have recognized him at first glance.

All this passed through her head in mere seconds. She was on her feet, greeting him and hoping he couldn't heart the loud drumming in her chest. "Avatar Aang."

"Just Aang," he said immediately, almost before they had lifted their eyes. He reddened, but repeated. "Just call me Aang."

Anger flared in her at the order and she bit it back with effort. "OK… Aang."

His eyes widened. It was almost as if he hadn't been expecting her to comply. "I…" He moved towards her. He was better, she could see that at once. Not just because he was actually standing and walking without any sign of pain. She could see it in the feet that moved lightly, as if they weren't completely touching the ground. That night, he had been too weak to attempt the most basic bending.

Not that he had been too weak for other things.

She held back the blush, but only just.

_Her vengeance. Hama's words. The plan!_

"Ava- Aang, we-"

He stopped a few inches from her and gazed at her so intently that she looked around herself, nervously.

"I didn't dream it all, did I?" His question was a whisper.

And now, she did blush. "I…"

His hand reached out and before she realized what he was about to do, he was touching her cheek.

Her breath caught sharply. His fingers were warm, almost hot. The sensation of his calluses on her cheek was playing havoc with her already unsteady heart. With an involuntary cry, she stepped out of reach, and looked away from him. Her eyes fell on the empty doorway. The aide was gone.

His hand remained motionless in mid-air for a few seconds. Then he let it fall to his side and inhaled deeply. She sneaked a glance at him and saw the surprised hurt on his face. Her heart twisted again. _What was wrong with it?_

"We received summons from the Fire Lord," Katara said quickly because she couldn't bear this tension any longer, because the last time she started feeling like this she made what could still become the biggest mistake of her life. "My mistress is weak and she cannot travel too frequently. I have been attending to her and hence, my delay."

By the time she had finished, his face was filled with so much confusion that she started doubting herself. "You know nothing of the Fire Lord's summons, Avatar Aang? We assumed they were made on your behalf."

He shook his head slightly. "Yes. Right. Actually, they are… I mean, were. And it's just Aang."

"You are not recovering as quickly as you would like?" It was comfortingly easy to slip into the healer personage. Seeing the Avatar so obviously disconcerted also helped her to calm herself.

"Actually, since you asked, I'm not. I mean, I'm _fine_. I'd just like to be able to do the things I usually do."

"You need to _rest_, Avatar otherwise you'll only slow your recovery, and you might damage yourself further." Which made no difference to her either way, but she had to play the part of healer to the end. She tried not to remember what she did after healing him. Or later, how she had struck him with ice daggers.

"I know, I know…like I said, I'm fine. You did a wonderful job…" His eyes darkened then, and she knew he was remembering what she was now forced to recall in vivid detail. He took a dreadful step closer and her healer act evaporated. She wanted so badly to look away but his eyes were so dark and they were boring into her own.

She didn't realize how close he had come until she felt his warm breath ghosting her cheek.

"You are Katara, aren't you? I'm not going crazy, am I?"

"My name," she managed to say from between numb lips, "is Kya."

He looked confused for a moment, then his face hardened with determination and he came even closer. His heat was overwhelming and she backed away instinctively. He followed.

"But it hasn't always been Kya, has it? I know you. Don't you remember me?"

"I don't. You are mistaken."

"Am I? That night. I called you Katara. You answered."

She did have a plan before coming here, hadn't she? Why couldn't she remember it? Why did everything in her head melt when she looked into those dark eyes? When she smelt his scent, heard his voice, felt the power shimmering off him in waves?

"What night?" She asked, lying in her desperation.

His eyes narrowed. "Don't pretend you don't remember."

"The Avatar is mistaken. I'm not pretending…"

Before Katara could blink, her back was against the wall and there was no room to run. His hands pressed flat against the wall on either of her sides, and the concrete wall just _curved_ in a little behind her, effectively trapping her. "For the last time, it's Aang!" His lips were on hers almost before he said the last word.

The first time she had been the one to kiss him. It had been slow and sweet, merely tasting really, because she had been curious and his skin beneath her hands had felt like velvet encasing iron and whenever her fingers brushed his lips, her stomach had ached. And somewhere inside her head, her common sense was screaming at the utter madness of what she was doing but the loud, rapid throbbing of blood in her body drowned the screams out. She had never felt so alive. And she wanted…she needed…more.

Then his lips had parted and she had felt his fingers in her hair, drawing her down into that wonderful, warm cocoon of his arms; and every bit of rationality inside her had gone completely silent.

This time, Aang was the one who started – no, _demanded_ – the kiss and it was hard and bruising and burning and she almost passed out from the sheer, raw _wanting_ that consumed her when he pushed her lips apart, and found her tongue with his own, the slow, poisonous teasing almost as unbearable as when he finally let them mate, his tongue stroking hers until she couldn't breathe.

The skin of his back was hot and wonderful against her hands and completely horrified her. How had her hands even got there? His entire body was pressing hers against the wall, his hands gripping her waist almost painfully and it was not enough. There was a split-second of sanity when he dragged his lips from her mouth and she panicked. But then his hot mouth went to her throat and after just sipping at her skin until she was almost sobbing that he stop teasing her, he bit her.

She cried out.

Aang pulled back, his lips just brushing her ear and she shivered violently. "What is your name? Tell me."

Her hands seized his face, tried to make him kiss her.

His lips barely touched hers before he pulled back again. She whimpered in frustration.

His eyes were smoldering, his jaw tight as if he was fighting an internal battle but when he whispered against her cheek, raising goose bumps on her skin, his voice was as soft and unyielding as silk. "Tell me."

"It's… K-Kya."

He growled low in his throat and something inside Katara unraveled. His hands were shifting down from her waist and the blood was rushing so fast in her mind that she couldn't think. She was a weak, helpless, hopeless wanton, reduced to nothing but wanting this man's kisses, this man's hands on her body…

"Tell me." Aang's lips were so tauntingly close that when he spoke, they brushed against her mouth.

Her fingers tangled so fiercely into his hair that she felt the strands give.

"Katara! My name is Katara! Please, oh please, _just kiss me_-"

* * *

The crescent moon glinted bright and sharp in the night sky. A soft breeze rustled the curtains until a single ray found its way into Aang's chamber, falling with unerring accuracy on the brown ankle which was peeking out from beneath his sheets.

Instinctively, Aang reached for the ankle, covering it so that the light fell on his own hand and caused the blue arrow to glow. As if chastened, the ray retreated, disappearing into the darkness of the room as the curtains fell to rest.

Aang smiled at his own foolish possessiveness and let her go, gently tucking the loose sheet around the ankle. Katara stirred, her hair sliding against her bare shoulders and he placed his hand gently on the small of her back.

"Shh… It's OK," he whispered softly.

She stilled and fell silent, her back rising and falling gently under his hand; and not for the first time, he wondered if he wasn't just dreaming this moment, these past few hours. He hadn't been able to sleep. He hadn't dared to. Happiness was a fragile balloon in his chest and the smallest disillusionment would burst it.

He wanted to wake Katara. Not to make love – or rather, Aang thought with a self-derisive grin – not _only_ to make love. He wanted her to face him, to look at him with those blue eyes. He wanted to kiss her softly, this time, and to ask her all the questions that had been burning in his mind these past weeks when his body had not been burning for hers. How did she survive the Razing of the South? What happened to her family? Where had she been these past five years? How did she find a water bending master? How long had she been living in the Fire Nation? What manner of good fortune brought her to his side when he was all but dead?

Quietly, he got out of bed and walked light-footed to the window. He pushed back the curtains, letting in both the light and the cool night air. He felt restless, on edge and filled with energy, and he badly wanted to grab his glider and fly into the dark night sky.

Instead, he just balanced on an inch of air, and let the breeze touch his cheeks.

He turned, resting against the glass so that half his gaze was on the woman lying in his bed, under his sheets like an impossible dream, and the other half was on the moon.

Aang noticed with an absent sort of surprise that the crescent rather resembled the blade of a scimitar.

* * *

_**A/N**: So did you like the changes? I think this chapter reads much better this way. I actually started out by expanding the love scene first, then I remembered the TOS rating and as it turned out, the story flows better with the 'fade to dark'. Or at least, in my opinion. I have the 'expanded' version as an outtake that I'll put up as an M-rated appendix to this story but anyone who wants to read it now, should just say so in the review and confirm that their at least 18 years old and I'll PM it to you. Please be honest so I won't getting into any trouble by sending it to you. Anonymous readers should leave an email address. Once again, thanks for sticking to this story!_


	7. afterglow

_**A/N**: A couple of you - you know who you are - who asked for the PM chapters, haven't sent me your email addresses._

* * *

**Chapter 7, afterglow**

"Y-you're very g-good at this."

Aang could feel the shape of Katara's smile against his skin. "Is the Avatar complaining?"

"N-not at all," he said, half-lying and too distracted by equal parts of pleasure and jealousy to correct her for using the title.

"Well, he shouldn't." Her finger found and followed a particularly sensitive nerve and he shouted. "It's like healing with water-bending. I just direct the water to enhance pleasure…"

Panting, Aang grabbed the finger; then, changing his mind, grabbed her hands and pulled her up against him, twisting so that he straddled her. "Stop distracting me." He seized her wandering hands. "We need to talk."

Her eyes, which had been light and laughing, darkened at once. She tried to pull her hands away. He held them firmly. After a brief struggle, she gave up, lying back against the bed with her face turned away from him.

"I need to know what happened to you, Katara."

"How many times must I tell you?" she snapped. "My name is not Katara!"

His grip tightened. "That's not what you said yesterday."

She turned then, one eyebrow raised. "You underestimate how persuasive you can be, Avatar."

"It's Aang," he snapped, infuriated by both the title that she insisted on using and the mockery in her voice. "And stop lying!"

Her eyes flashed. "You stop lying to yourself, _Avatar_. I'm not going to pretend just to please you."

"You didn't have a problem with pleasing me two weeks ago. Or this morning."

He felt her fingers move within his grip but he didn't see the huge calabash of water fly towards him until it was almost on top of him. With a yell, he let go of one of her hands to send it flying back, crashing it against the wall.

Her free hand struck him across the cheek. He only just managed to pry her fingers from his hair. It was a struggle to pin her down again.

"Stop fighting me!"

"Let me go!"

She had to stop moving. She was writhing against him in earnest and that was distracting him in the worst possible way it could. "I'm just trying to…"

"Trying to what? You've got what you wanted now let me alone!"

It took her by surprise when he did, because she stayed squirming beneath him for a few seconds of pleasurable torture, before she lifted her hands to shove him back. He lolled on the air that had rushed up to meet him before collapsing on his back as she gathered the sheets around her and swung her legs over the side of the bed. He half-expected her to spring to her feet but she just sat there. For someone that was so desperate to leave a few minutes ago, she didn't move beyond where she sat at the edge of the bed.

Her shoulders were hunched and tense, and reminded him of a small, cornered animal and pity welled up within him, dispelling the anger.

"I'm trying to understand you," he said quietly to the ceiling. He turned his head to look at her. "Katara…" Her body tensed as if to flee, and he chose his words carefully. "Katara meant a lot to me. She still does. I want to know what happened to her."

"Then you're wasting your time with _me_."

He smiled. "That's not what you said this morning," he reminded her again, this time more kindly, "or last night, several times…"

"Stop it!" The pale skin on her back was darkening.

"…or yesterday or the night before…"

Her flushed face glanced at him over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed in a fierce glare. "Congratulations. You apparently know all the right buttons to push."

Aang smirked. That might have been a low blow for some but after living in the same Palace as Fire Princess Azula for two years, he was just amused. "So you're saying I push your buttons?"

Her face flushed even deeper and she turned away. "This Katara that means so much to you… why didn't you – why don't you try and find her?"

"I did," he said quietly. "I was told she was dead."

"Then she is and you're living in a fantasy. You should ask some other woman to play this role for you."

For a moment he was silent, warring between pushing his point or trying a different approach. He eyed the tight bones in her spine and instinctively reached a finger to touch one. She started and he could _feel_ the nerves rushing to meet his finger. The tension didn't leave her, if anything it intensified, the muscles in her shoulders shifting as she struggled against her body's response to him. He smiled.

"Why should I?" He asked, his voice light. "I've found you."

"I-I'm not…"

He let his finger travel slowly, oh so slowly, down her spine, counting those tiny bones. He didn't think he was meant to hear that gasp, or feel the way her body shuddered. Crawling across the sheets, he moved closer so he could see her profile, watch the expression on her face. "Maybe I don't care," he said softly, "maybe I'm happy enough with you being in my bed, in any terms. You like being in my bed, don't you?"

Katara didn't answer – at least not with words. She was biting her lip, trying visibly to keep from reacting any more than she could help. He pressed his finger into a particularly sensitive spot and she gasped out loud.

It _was_ like waterbending; and incidentally, he wondered if he hadn't found the solution to his long-abandoned search for a waterbending _sifu_.

"Y-you're very g-good at pushing b-buttons."

"Maybe I'm just a fast learner," Aang said modestly.

It was amazing how that small, reluctant smile gratified him far more than her more sensual responses to his advances. She turned, and he let her pull him up onto his knees and into a kiss. Then another. Then another. They lay back on the bed and the part of his mind that was not completely lost in her could see yet another day slipping him by.

"Wait," he gasped, pulling back, balancing his weight on his elbows.

"Why?" she asked. It was a very good question, his lust-fuddled brain decided, and he wasn't sure he could have come up with an answer even if it hadn't turned out to be a rhetoric one. She reached up and pulled him back to her. Her soft, lovely arms were also very strong and he really didn't understand why he felt he needed to resist. He helped her out of her clothes – _why did they ever bother putting them on in the first place? Which idiot invented the stupid things anyway?_ – It wasn't as if he hadn't tried talking before and that hadn't gone well…

Talking. Right.

"Wait!" Aang sprang back, this time holding her down with his hands as he tried to get control of his hormones. "I still want to talk."

Her blue eyes were very soft and she smiled. "No, you don't." And she reached for him again.

_I really, really don't_, he thought miserably but he ducked out of her hands – he might have used some air-bending tactics there – and scrambled to the edge of the bed.

They were in the same pose as before, but reversed: Aang sitting with his back to her, and she leaning back, probably as angry and frustrated as he had felt earlier.

He winced, waiting for the explosion.

"What do you want to talk about?"

He turned in surprise. Her voice was not biting with sarcasm but gentle and from the little he could of her eyes – she was looking at the sheets she was pleating with her fingers – they were not flashing with anger either.

"I-I" He cleared his throat. "I'd like to know what hap…" '_What happened after I left your village five years ago' _might not sit well with her so he tried another tactic. "I'd like to know how a Waterbender ended up living in the Fire Nation."

"And in exchange?"

"What do you mean?"

"What answers will _you_ give _me_?"

"Whatever you want."

She smiled and he realized a little too late that Avatars shouldn't make offers like that lightly.

"Whatever I want?" she repeated, incredulously.

He didn't even hesitate. This was Katara. He loved her, even if he didn't understand her. He trusted her. "Anything."

She considered. He could see in her eyes when she made the decision.

She curled up, clasping her legs to her chest and leaned on her knees. Her dark hair fell on either side of her face, hiding her from his view.

"On the last day of the Siege of the North-"

"The _North_?"

"Listen."

* * *

_A flag is flapping in the wind. If it is white, I cannot see to tell. _

_The red, flickering lights of the fire-bender's torches burn my eyes. I can barely feel the body of the soldier I am – was – healing. I am as useful to him as I am to the dummy we use to learn in Mistress Yugoda's classes. The firebenders killed the moon spirit and now every waterbender and healer has been rendered powerless._

"_Who are these women?" _

"_None of your concern." _

"_Answer me, old man!" I gasp at the sound of a fist hitting a person's face. _

_The flames flicker and I recognize Master Pakku. My temper rises and my arms form the motion for the water whip before I can even think beyond making that soldier _pay…

_But nothing happens, of course. The moon is dead and the Water Tribe with it. _

_Instead, I only succeed in drawing attention to myself. _

"_What was that?" _

"_She's a bender!" _

_Strong hands materialize from thin air and fasten around my fists. _

"_Let me go!" I scream, struggling. When I feel the cold metal of manacles around my wrists, I almost stop breathing. _

"_Let her go!" Master Pakku shouts. I can hear some of the younger students crying. I am afraid for them, for Master Pakku, for us all. _

"_She's not a bender. There are no female benders in the Northern Tribe!" _

"_Silence, all of you!" The first soldier – the one who hit Master Pakku – shouts. "I know a waterbending move when I see one."_

"_What difference does it make?" Master Pakku is still shouting. "You have killed the moon spirit! You've rendered all of us powerless! You've won!" _

"_We have our orders. Every waterbender is to be taken to the Fire Nation." _

"_Then focus! She is not a waterbender, she is a healer! I thought you firebenders were stupid, not blind," Master Pakku snarls. _

_They hit him for that. Then they hit him again. And again. Powerful as he is – was, now he's just an old man. He goes down. The soldiers are laughing. They don't stop hitting him. The little girls are crying, begging them to stop. _

_They don't stop._

* * *

"I'm thirsty."

Aang poured her a glass from the jug by the side of the bed. He hovered over her as she drank, glimpsed her blank and expressionless face through the curtain of her hair, watched the way the knuckles of the hand not holding the glass were clenched grey with tension.

"Did they kill him?"

Katara shrugged. "I don't know. They took me away. I never saw him again."

"I'm sorry."

She pushed her hair back with one hand to look at him. It was not… a pleasant look. If anything, it resembled the look on her face two weeks ago, just before she threw ice shards at him. "Why? You weren't there. If you were, rather than a few casualties, probably every single person in the Water tribe would have died. "

The ice shards would have been preferable. Her words couldn't have hurt him more if she had stabbed him with a dozen daggers. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he bit out. He glared at her fiercely, daring her to mention the city once known as Omashu or the Earth Kingdom Base or any of the dozen places declared in public accolades and whispered in rumors where the Avatar had scored a pyrrhic victory for the Fire Nation.

Instead, she just rested her chin on her knees and let her hair fall back. She shrugged as if she really could care less.

He held back his anger, but only barely. "So what happened next?" He managed after a tense silence.

"What do you think happened next?" Katara hissed. "We were taken to the Fire Nation as prisoners. The End."

"I mean… how did you escape? Was Hama the innkeeper with you in the North? How were you in the North in the first place? How did you end up living together?"

"How could she have been with me? She's been living in the Fire Nation for over fifty years. Didn't your _spies_ tell you that?"

Aang started, then squirmed. "Ah. About that…"

"Did you think we wouldn't notice?"

"I… I just didn't…"

"Didn't what? You're the Avatar, the Fire Nation's champion. You don't owe some water tribe peasant any explanations."

"You're not a peasant! And I do owe you explanations. I can see that now."

"I really don't want to hear them."

"No, you don't, do you? You'd rather hold onto the perception of me you've formed from rumors and half-truths!"

The third time she shrugged, Aang lost his temper completely.

"It wasn't my decision to leave the Southern Tribe, you know! I was driven off! Maybe if your people hadn't been so paranoid, things would have been different!"

"If you insist on telling me your life story, Avatar-"

"Stop calling me that!"

"You stop calling me Katara then!"

The windows imploded. She screamed, raising her hands to shield herself but he had already sent the shards flying into a pile in the far corner.

It was a windy day. The curtains flapped furiously against the now-open windows. She lifted horrified eyes to stare at him, but he had already pulled on his clothes and left.

* * *

Katara hated herself for how relieved she felt when he came back. She was fully dressed from her headband to her sandals. Even after scrubbing herself down in the adjoining restroom, she could still smell him on herself. She was trying not to think about how she had once again failed, and fallen, and succumbed not only her body this time but some of her most precious confidences.

The sudden silence in the room was what alerted her to his presence. She turned to the open windows, through which the wind had been howling all this while and noticed that the glass had, seemingly, silently repaired itself. She swiveled round to see the Avatar where he stood with arms folded, leaning against the doorway and dressed in the simple red Fire Nation clothes he usually wore in his rooms.

It was no longer surprising but it was still immensely frustrating that at the sight of him her heart started pounding.

"Leaving so soon?" He asked, coolly.

He had a very strange idea of soon, Katara thought furiously, considering she had no idea just how long she had stayed here.

"My grandmother must be worried," she said with coolness to match his own.

"And you must be worried about her." Her surprise must have shown because he went on, "what with her being ill and all that. Or have you forgotten?" His voice was mocking.

She blushed, more with anger than embarrassment at forgetting her lie. "Am I free to go, Avatar?"

Aang's eyes flashed but he didn't correct her. Instead he shrugged. "You're not a prisoner. You've been free to go from the moment you came here."

This time the blood in her cheeks was more hurt than anything and that only served to infuriate her further. She didn't want to be _kept _here. She didn't _care_ if he had wanted her enough to try. She bowed. "Good day, Avatar. I hope you recover your full health soon," she managed through a suddenly tight throat.

He bowed silently.

She walked across the room and towards the doorway – towards him. As always, more heat radiated from him than was normal for anybody and her stomach tightened painfully when she came within proximity of that warmth. And that scent. And the fact alone that she might brush against him as she passed was unbearable and she needed to just _keep moving_ …

His hand reached out and she just walked into his arms. Just like that. His fingers were wonderful in her hair, she could feel the strands fall free, as they kissed and kissed and kissed. His body was trapped between hers and the wall and the long, lean line of it, flushed against hers was wonderful.

He broke the kiss and held her close, his lips resting against her ear. "Forgive me, please… I can't lose you again," he whispered shakily, his breath making her shiver. "I'm so sorry. I know I don't understand you. I want to understand you. Please don't go…"

Then she kissed him and neither of them said anything for a long, long time.

She stayed.

The next morning he took her to see Appa.

* * *

_Dear Nana_

_Blessings. How is your health? Have the hen-ducks laid eggs yet? _

_The Avatar's health requires my constant supervision. His recuperation is not as straightforward as anticipated. I will need to stay in the Fire Palace longer than we both expected. I think of you and your counsel constantly. _

_Your loving daughter,_

_Kya._


	8. ghost

**Chapter 8, ghost**

The White Lily Garden was Appa's home. It was little more than a plain field, covered with low thick grass and shrubs of the flower that it was named for. The Fire Lord had it built in the year following the Last War after the Avatar had finally decided to make his home in the Fire Nation. Perhaps Appa would have preferred a home in the clouds, like the place of his birth in the Eastern Temple, far away on the other side of the world. Zuko had considered building a gigantic tower and converting the highest levels to an earthly paradise for the creature. But Aang had been too afraid of Appa killing himself in a vain attempt to fly, and he would never let the bison be shackled or caged in any way, not even for the most benign of reasons.

Never again.

Many people believed that the Avatar's animal guide had died in the war and the Fire Lord encouraged their belief. Whether or not the Avatar approved, Zuko had no idea.

No one ever talked to the Avatar about his bison.

The garden was walking distance from the Avatar's living chambers and cordoned off from everyone but the Fire Lord, Jin – a young boy who had taken a liking to Appa in the circus and had been handpicked by Zuko to be his feeder – and of course, the Avatar himself. But as Aang rarely ever came to see his bison, it was basically just down to Zuko and Jin.

So that was why it was an enormous surprise for Zuko to see a strange woman in the White Lily Garden one fine morning.

He had been standing at the balcony overlooking the Garden, idly watching Appa sleep and considering state affairs: the appropriateness of inviting the widowed Northern Water Tribe chief to the Fire Carnival; the quarterly updates of the factories in Ba Sing Se; the increase in security allocation for its regent and said regent's politely grating refusal to return to the Fire Nation, even briefly, when a flash of red against the backdrop of white and green had caught his eye. He stiffened automatically at the sight of a complete stranger approaching the bison. No sooner had he gripped the banister with one hand to jump to Appa's rescue –between his and the Avatar's enemies, it was a wonder that both of them had lived this long – when someone came literally flying into the scene on a familiar glider and landed on Appa's head.

The bison opened his mouth and gave a disgruntled roar.

Aang. It shouldn't have been so astonishing. It wasn't that he _never_ visited his bison. Every now and then, he'd get miserable enough or guilty enough or – on that one occasion – drunk enough and pay Appa a visit that usually ended badly for the both of them. At this last thought, Zuko tensed. He owed the bison – Appa had saved his life – and Zuko wouldn't let anyone, not even Aang, ever hurt him.

From that far above, Zuko could not make out what Aang said to Appa when he landed before him; whatever it was caused Appa to grunt and close his eyes promptly. Apparently, this was not the response Aang wanted and he proceeded to prod and pull at Appa to wake him up, occasionally bouncing up and down to get his attention. The woman sat down on the grass and watched both of them. After a series of failures, Aang finally gave up and he collapsed against Appa's bulk, throwing his head back, his shoulders shaking and his mouth open.

With a thrill of shock that almost sent him over the balcony, Zuko realized that _Aang was laughing. _

Aang never laughed. Or if he did, not near where people could see or hear. He certainly never laughed around _Appa_.

Perhaps Zuko was mistaken. He certainly hadn't seen Aang laugh enough times to recognize how he looked when he did. He had almost convinced himself of this when another's reaction bore him witness. Appa's enormous eyelids had lifted and his head twirled to face at Aang. Aang fell silent at once, and the two of them just stared at each other.

Then the bison roared and Aang sprang into the air and jumped on him, roaring as well with laughter that must have been muffled against Appa's fur. He was holding his friend as tightly as his arms could go round the enormous bulk and his shoulders were shaking.

Zuko had seen Aang cry too many times not to recognize this.

The woman, clearly not alarmed at this irrational display or the sight of a suddenly awake, very loud bison, just leaned back against the grass and watched them.

The woman.

Zuko had paid next to no attention to the healer's companion when old Hama had arrived in the Fire Palace that bright morning. The Fire Lord had been desperate, and then relieved that he hadn't needed to resort to extreme measures to persuade the old innkeeper-cum-healer – infamous for picking and choosing her patients – to obey his summons. Then when she had finally arrived, he had been too taken aback by her outrageous demand of unsupervised access to the Avatar to give the novice more than a passing glance. After weeks of failed attempts by the Temple sages, the best Fire medicine-men and the most earnest healers from the Northern Water tribe, old Hama the witch – as she was referred to by her neighbors – had been Aang's last chance.

Only according to Aang, he didn't owe his life to the healer but the apprentice – the girl Kya who was, if Aang was to be believed, Katara of the Southern Tribe.

Zuko studied her now, or what he could make of her from that distance. She was resting on her elbows in the grass and watching Aang who had settled cross-legged in front of Appa's eyes and was apparently filling him in on the past two years.

_(Aang talking to Appa!) _

She was dark, but not as dark as Water people usually were. There was definitely nothing of the Water tribeswomen in her style of dressing which was a plain peasant red, covering her from neck to feet. Many foreigners, and particularly the Water people, found the Fire Nation's heat oppressive; the bare-shouldered, mid-riff baring style was the first thing to give away a non-local.

But if she really was Katara of the Water tribe, she could have been in the Fire Nation for five years.

_(Igloos turned black with smoke.)_

That was enough time to acclimatize, to adapt and blend in so completely that no one would ever know where she came from.

A Water tribeswoman hiding but living free in the Fire Nation during the war. It seemed impossible. It _sounded _impossible.

Aang laughed again. Zuko came out of his dark thoughts in time to see Appa's long, red tongue loll out and lick the healer's apprentice who was called Kya but might be Katara of the Water tribe. Whatever she was, she had Aang obsessed enough with her to consider abduction, happy – _happy! –_enough around her to laugh, and affectionate enough around her to reconcile with Appa.

Appa who Aang had once described, that drunken night, as the '_avatar of all my failures'_.

Aang who the best healers had all tried to cure and failed.

"Now, that's something you don't see every day."

He jumped slightly, and then laughed self-consciously as he felt his wife's arms go around his chest. Mai's cheek rested against his back and he sighed, letting go of the banister to hold her hands against him.

"There are days when I won't dare to approach Appa, and there he is licking a complete stranger."

Mai's laughter echoed in his chest. "Actually I was talking about Avatar Aang sharing his lady friend with the world. The servants whisper that neither of them has left his rooms since the day she arrived here."

"Indeed? What-?"

"No, no, you're not interested in that," she teased, laughing. "You're worried about Appa making new friends. Jealous he'll forget you?"

Zuko's eyes didn't lift from Appa's new friend who had finally stood up and was burying her fingers inside Appa's fur. The bison rumbled contentedly while Aang hovered above both of them, talking and smiling and not stopping being happy.

Careful, political smiles. Vindictive smiles after a hard-won victory. Smirks.

Never laughter. Never this mad joy.

_(The wet wolf-tail in the centre of the spreading red snow. The ground melting beneath his feet.)_

"No, I'm not jealous."

His voice must have given him away. Mai's weight lifted from him, and he could feel the sudden worry in the eyes that pierced his back. "Then what? What is it?"

It was said that the greatest healers in the world were water-benders.

"I'm afraid."


	9. shadows

**Chapter 9, shadows**

The morning after Katara left for the Palace, Hama woke up in her old bed, saw the rolled up parchment waiting by her bedside and even before she read it, she knew.

_Sifu Hama, _

_I will never forget. If we never meet again, I thank you for your kindness and for your teaching. _

_Your humble pupil, _

_Katara._

Going off on her own to the Fire Palace to execute her plan single-handedly was the kind of stubborn, reckless action that Hama had come to expect of the girl.

In the days that followed, Hama kept a wary eye on the inn's visitors but there was no sudden appearance of red-suited soldiers, demanding her arrest; neither was there any sighting of green-robed agents whispering to her neighbors. News from the outside world came to her fairly regularly via gossip from the neighboring market and the trickle of guests that lodged at the inn, a trickle that increased steadily as the Carnival season began. Other than the now-no-longer news about rebel uprisings in the Earth colonies, there was no whisper of a sudden arrest in the Fire Capital or of an attempt, successful or otherwise, on the Avatar's life or sanity.

There had been no word from the Order either but Hama was used to long silences from that quarter. It was just as well because after her last message, she was not looking forward to a response. The news of hers and Katara's failure could not have been received well.

Hama did notice that instead of two spies, there was only one now, keeping a discreet distance behind Hama at all times. Possibly the other one was still shadowing Katara, wherever she was now.

Hama took all these as good signs. Whatever Katara had done or was doing, she must be sticking to the plan. She was still safe and so was Hama. Certainly, the Fire Lord would not have forgotten to whom 'Kya' was apprenticed to.

And in the meanwhile, the full moon drew nearer.

* * *

"I haven't seen Kya in a while," Li declared one morning.

The other guests had long vacated the table. Li, the old smith who traveled East to the colonies and spent a week en voyage in the inn every spring, was still drinking his tea.

Hama filled up his cup, her sleeve falling over her scarred hand with the east of old practice, and smiled at him. "She's gone to see a patient up country."

"Good girl, Kya," Li said, gulping his tea and coughing. "Reminds me of my own daughter," he said when he finished. "Now, the thing about Zai is how good she is at…"

It was easy enough to tune Li out. His speeches about Zai, his daughter in the colony, or Zin, the great soldier she was married to, or their children rarely varied. All Hama had to do was nod and smile at appropriate turns and look interested enough in the old man's inane prattle.

The window behind Li's head looked into the garden with the big lotus tree, the grass tapering into the street. Hama's eyes narrowed as she spotted a dark-robed figure, apparently waiting at the corner of the street for a passing carriage.

Apparently.

Only Hama knew her designated watcher by sight, and the small girl she occasionally glimpsed from the corner of her eye or in mirrors was nothing like the tall man sitting by the roadside.

She tensed. Had they changed the spy? Or assigned an additional spy? Or was it – her lips tightened – a spy from the Order? Using the usual methods, Hama had sent word about Katara's return to the Palace. She had received no response.

It hadn't taken the innkeeper long to decipher the reason why Katara had failed. Perhaps others in the Order had drawn the same conclusions.

Perhaps the Fire Lord was not the only one suspicious of the water women's alliances…

A carriage was coming up the cobbled street. The tall man stood and hailed it. A few minutes later, both carriage and stranger were rolling past the inn.

As if on cue, the branches of the tall tree suddenly shook. There was no breeze. But now that she knew where to look, Hama could just make out the outline of a small shoeless foot peeking through the leaves.

Before she could help it, Hama laughed.

"What are you smiling at?" Li asked, looking up from his tea with a hurt expression.

Hama didn't stop. "Just at myself." When he kept frowning, she laughed again. "I'm getting old, Li."

He stopped frowning and leered at her. "You don't look a day over sixteen to me."

Hama sighed. She was definitely getting too old.

* * *

Two shadows met at dusk.

"One week to the full moon."

"You think it will happen then?"

"It is when Waterbenders are at their strongest. The Siege of the North proved that once and for all. Remember the Moon Killer?"

"The moon didn't stay dead."

"It stayed long enough."

"That's not the point. Before she and the old woman only had one chance. Now she is with him all the time: when he eats, when he sleeps. Why wait until the full moon? Why not move on him now?"

"Because for this to work, she will need her full strength. She is not fool enough to take on the Avatar with anything less. He won't make himself vulnerable to a woman he barely knows. She has his fancy now but she's not the first he has taken to his bed."

"Not like this. You have to see him with her. He's totally smitten. And they say that he knew her from before."

"The Avatar might be taken by her, but the Fire Lord is not. Even now Zuko's spies are shadowing the girl and the old woman. He did not hesitate against his own sister; he won't hesitate against the water people."

"Well, I don't like it, sir. The longer she stays in the Palace, the longer she runs the risk of discovery."

"Is that what you're really afraid of?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"I think you are not as worried about her running the risk of discovery as you are afraid that she will not carry out her mission. You say that the Avatar is smitten with her. I think you are more concerned that _she_ is smitten with _him_."

"I never said-"

"And perhaps you are right."

"I… what?"

"There was always a possibility that the mission would not succeed: it's been over a century since an extremely powerful waterbender succeeded in doing what this mere girl attempted. She is confident and Hama believes in her but we always knew that she might prove too weak to wield the power or that the Avatar's mind might prove too strong. So there was a second mission in the event the first one failed. One that would take advantage of the fact that no one in the Fire Palace would ever know that the healers could have succeeded – did succeed – in pulling the Avatar from the brink of certain death."

There was a long silence. "She could have killed him. But instead…"

"Instead, she heals him, saves his life and leaves her home to become his lover."

"What about Hama? She was there, perhaps she thought…"

"Hama. It is on Hama's word alone that we are to believe that the girl did not deliberately fail. It is on her word alone that we believe that the girl spent too much power healing him and she had none left to complete her mission. Yes, Hama has proven her loyalty to the Order several times over. But she has a special fondness for the girl. You should not completely trust Hama's evidence if the truth would put that girl in danger from us."

"So... it is true, then. I was right! We can't trust her. She might be telling him everything about us right this moment! How could I be so blind? This changes everything!"

"Once again, you fail to see the obvious."

"What? That Katara has turned against m- the Order? That the Fire Nation will soon be hunting us down?"

"You have failed to see the great advantage in the present situation to _us_."

"How? In what possible way can this be to our advantage?"

"Attempt to reason it out yourself. Right at this moment, the water girl is living in the Fire Palace as the Avatar's mistress. He has taken her out in public. He has not disguised his infatuation with her. And we know with almost complete certainty that her feelings for him are not to be taken lightly."

"Yes, I know that!"

"So how can you fail to realize the great advantage it is to us that we have someone in the Royal Palace with the potential to enter the Avatar's and the Fire Lord's inner circle?"

"Not when she refuses to betray him. Not when she has turned her back on us!"

"She won't have a choice. You think she will betray us. She will be more afraid of betraying herself. She doesn't know enough to implicate anyone more important than Hama. And if she reveals her allegiance to the Order on the whim that the Avatar might protect her from the Fire Lord, then she is a bigger fool than we thought. The girl will hold her peace. And we will hold her to it… for a price."

There was a long silence.

"Take my word for it, young Haru. Whatever happens on the night of the full moon, Katara of the South has far from exhausted her usefulness to the Order."


	10. council

**Chapter 10, council**

Katara wondered if there was something in the blood of flying creatures – like bisons and airbenders – that made them generate so much heat. Appa had been comfortingly warm during the hike back to the village five years ago but now under the hot noonday sun, rubbing a hand on the sleeping bison's pelt was like touching furry flames. Aang was no better. He radiated heat like a human-shaped sun. He sat now, cross-legged and shirtless in the grass, his pants rolled up to just below his knees, perspiring in the relatively cool breeze. She remembered how the cold hadn't seemed to affect him. How he had played in the snow wearing what seemed to the Water people as the most impractical of clothing.

Beside her, Appa made a shuffling noise and stirred. Katara, waited, holding her breath but he didn't wake. She wondered if nightmares were also something that bisons and airbenders had in common. Her eyes drifted to the stump of black and white fur that was what remained of his tail.

"What are you thinking?"

Startled, she looked up into dark, gray eyes. Her thoughts had distracted her. She hadn't noticed Aang end his trance, and walk up to her. Although, that could be because he was literally as light as a feather when he wanted to be.

Katara considered answering "none of your business" just to bother him and something in her face must have given her away because Aang narrowed his eyes, bent down and kissed her. Very thoroughly.

She stopped considering everything.

A sharp, unnecessary cough interrupted them. Katara looked up at the tall shadow, took one glimpse at the Fire Lord's face and the slight blush that had been rising in her cheeks drained away.

The cool rage was almost a relief.

"Avatar Aang, may I have a word?"

Aang, who had just given the Fire Lord a quick glance over his shoulder, before turning back to her, now shrugged, still not looking at the other man. His arms were still around Katara, trapping her where she sat on the grass. "Later, Zuko."

"It is a matter of urgency."

Aang sighed. Then he let her go, straightened up and faced the Fire Lord. Quickly, Katara got to her feet. "Can't you see I'm busy?" he asked, calmly enough.

"Yes, I can see that." The Fire Lord said, barely glancing at her. Katara did her best to remember Hama's lesson, and kept her face expressionless. "But as you refused to acknowledge my messages, I am forced to seek you out myself."

"Oooh, I am flattered," Aang said, smiling.

"I would like to speak to you alone."

Still smiling, Aang nodded. The Fire Lord hesitated, then, to Katara's surprise, walked up to Appa, stroked his nose – the bison still didn't wake – then walked away, long red robes trailing in the white lily field.

When he was out of earshot, Aang turned to her, taking her hands in his own. She tried to snatch them away but he held them firmly. "I'm sorry. It's this boring Council meeting. The counselors feel it's relevant, and I am apparently the Chief Counselor." He rolled his eyes. "I thought I could get out of it with my convalescence, but I suppose it's hard to explain why I'm strong enough to air-bend in broad daylight but not strong enough to sit down for a boring meeting."

She hated herself for smiling, especially when he beamed.

"I'd rather spend the whole day with you," he said wistfully, coming nearer, close enough that their noses touched.

Her breath caught and she waited. Then when he just kept smiling, she leaned forward and kissed the smile off his mouth. His hands freed hers to tangle in her hair which was a relief because then she could wrap her arms around him and feel the play of muscles beneath that smooth, long back.

She broke the kiss, gasping and buried her face against his shoulder.

"I'd better go," he whispered into her hair.

She nodded, thinking the same thing. _I'd better go far, far away from you._ Against her cheek, the thrumming of his pulse sounded like mockery.

* * *

"Avatar Aang."

The counselors stood at attention. Aang winced inwardly at the range of expressions on their faces – from reverence to impatience to barely-concealed disdain – and made his way to his place at the end of the table. He bowed in greeting to the man at his opposite, the only one who had remained sitting.

Zuko returned the greeting – barely. Aang resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow – _What's eating you? Sure I was late, but it's hardly the first time we've kept these old goons waiting_ – and sat cross-legged on the cushion placed for him.

The Fire Lord nodded in turn to all the people present – Fire Lady Mai, Admiral Chan, Admiral Zhao, Minister Qin, newly appointed General How…

"We may begin."

As one, the counselors took their seats.

Aang hadn't come to the meeting expecting much. In the months immediately following the former Fire Lord, that bastard Ozai's death, the War Council – because that was what this had been essentially – was instrumental towards developing the defensive and offensive strategies that had brought the new war to a swift and decisive end. After that, the tactics designed here had shifted from military to political. Aang had been actively interested in both – it was always necessary to know just what he needed to defy to get the job done – but he had to admit, the military meetings were far more interesting.

But as time went on, even the political agendas had become obsolete. All the necessary treaties had been established between the Nation and the vassal states. The colonies had been subdued. A few rebel activities here and there thrived but they were nothing the fiercest and largest combined Army, Navy and Air Force in the known world could not control. The War Council was quietly renamed the Fire Lord's Council and became little more than a venue for boring administrative chit-chat.

He perked up a little when the topic of the Fire Carnival came up and General How tentatively asked Aang if the Avatar was sufficiently recovered to make his customary demonstration during the Carnival? Aang mumbled something noncommittal and avoided Zuko's eyes. The discussion delved into the Carnival theme, logistics and protocol and matters so mundane that Aang couldn't keep his attention on them even if he had wanted to.

So when Zhao stood up, cleared his throat in the ostentatious, attention-seeking manner that he was famous for, and un-scrolled a piece of parchment with a flourish, Aang just snarled quietly and continued mentally counting down the minutes until he could get back to Katara. He tried not to think too much about her – formal robes or not, that would be embarrassing. He also tried not to remind himself that Zuko's spy was still keeping a close eye on Katara and had had her mandate changed to 'persuade' Katara not to leave the Palace without his knowledge.

Not permission, he reminded himself firmly. Just knowledge. He wasn't trying to keep _her_.

At least not against her will.

"Our sources in New Ozai have provided us with intelligence linking the apparent random rebel insurgencies in the City with the machinations of an ancient secret society."

For the first time in days, all thoughts of Katara took a backseat in Aang's mind.

As the smug bastard must have counted on, all eyes in the Council room were looking at Zhao in sharp attention.

"Let me see that," Zuko said.

With a smile on his face that was almost a smirk, Zhao gave the scroll to Zuko and bowed perfunctorily.

Minister Qin asked, "Why wasn't this information handed over to the Fire Lord before the meeting?"

Aang, who was watching Zuko closely, just barely caught the small frown before it smoothened itself away.

At the question, Zhao's near-smirk had widened. Aang resisted the urge to air-slap it off the man's annoying face. "I was only just informed myself, a few minutes to this meeting."

"And you deemed it best to intercept an intelligence report meant for the Fire Lord?" Admiral Chan snarled. As Ozai's old lieutenants went, Chan was not a bad sort. He made no secret of the fact that there was no love lost between him and Zhao.

"It was addressed to me," Zhao said complacently. "Maybe the Dai Li deemed that the information was too inconclusive for the Fire Lord to be bothered with."

Minister Qin opened his mouth to speak only to be cut off, quietly, efficiently by the Fire Lord.

"We will correct the defaulting protocol officer later." Aang was pleased to see Zhao's dark face pale a little and that irritating smile vanish. "The most important thing now is to deal with this new information." He passed the scroll to Chan.

Chan read it, his old face wrinkling even further, then passed it on to the next man.

When it got to Aang, he glanced at it, read the first line…'King Bumi was spotted with Resistance Leader, Haru a few meters from the Sewer system… and only just managed to hold his temper.

"How creditable is this source?" Aang snapped as soon as Mai handed the scroll back. He wasn't as good with silent menace as Zuko was and his voice was just a decibel short of an actual roar.

Still the half-awed, half-resentful gaze of the audience showed he could be just as effective. Most of them had seen the Avatar in a rage before. None of them wished to see the Avatar in a rage again.

Zhao, the fool, actually spoke. "The Dai Li are the most efficient, most extensive…"

"The Dai Li are a group of mercenary turncoats," Aang retorted, vindictively pleased at the way Zhao's eyes bulged at being cut short. "I'd trust anything from them as far as _you_ can throw it."

Zhao's fists clenched. Aang breathed deeply, feeling the dormant Agni rising in his belly, and waited.

_Just give me a reason. _

"An ancient secret society," Mai said softly. "How romantic."

The sudden tension dissipated. Chan snorted, and a few others chuckled. Zhao glared at everyone.

Then Zuko spoke and once more, the Council fell silent. "Avatar Aang, counselors, we need to consider this information from all angles before we take action. On the one hand, it could be Agni-sent solution to quashing the rebel insurgents once and for all. On the other hand, this could be a conspiracy from some faceless enemy to sow discord between the Fire Nation and one of its most important vassal states."

He turned a steady eye – the left one – to his counselors, holding each man's gaze one by one.

"We will deliberate on this until we find out who the culprits are and what their motive is. And when we do, we shall strike as we always have – swiftly and completely."

* * *

"The whole thing is a bloody lie!"

"Aang, I meant what I said. We need to consider this carefu-"

"Consider _what_, Zuko? We'd still be fighting now if Bumi and the White Lotus hadn't signed that treaty and you know it!"

"Well since the White Lotus doesn't technically exist, the secret treaty doesn't either and _will you keep your voice down?_ Secret chamber or not, walls have ears!"

Aang had been in non-stop motion since they had got here, literally climbing walls of the antechamber as he viciously removed the layers of clothing that made up his full monk's uniform. He was always in a hurry to disrobe after formal appearances. He _said_ that it was because the Fire Nation was too hot for proper Air Nomad clothing. Zuko kept his own theory about the real reason to himself.

Now, Aang appeared to literally swallow his words, his chests rising and falling heavily as he breathed out steam.

Which reminded Zuko:

"How many times must I tell you that breathing steam in public is seen in the Fire Nation as an act of aggression?"

"You did not steam-breathe during the Council meeting!" Mai exclaimed, looking up from her erstwhile silent reading of her parents' letter to stare at Aang.

Aang, half-way through pulling his monk's robe over his head, said something that was muffled in the process.

Zuko tried not to take to heart the way Mai's eyes followed the gradually exposing line of blue on the Avatar's back.

Tried.

"For once, you weren't paying him any attention," Zuko retorted.

Mai smirked.

"It was either that or blast Zhao where he stood," Aang said at last, finally free of the robe. He folded it automatically as he continued his restless pacing of the cool marble floor.

"For accusing the White Lotus? Intercepting the Dai Li's intelligence?" Zuko asked.

"Oh, I know he didn't intercept it. He wanted to rub it in your face that he has the loyalty of those earthworms."

"And Minister Qin certainly brought that to everyone's attention," Mai said thoughtfully. "You should keep an eye on him, Zuko."

"I already have," he said quietly. He caught her eye and they exchanged identical, sinister smiles.

Aang rolled his eyes. "Let me know when you've stopped bonding over your shared evil genius and you're ready to deal with the problem you have at hand."

"Which one?" Mai drawled. "There are suddenly so many."

"Admiral Zhao trying to stage a coup against Zuko."

Zuko frowned. "Zhao is all flame and no ashes. I may not like it but I have to keep my enemies close."

"Close, right?" Aang snapped. He swirled around, pointing his thumb towards the ugly red scar at the center of his spine. "Is this close enough?"

Zuko looked away, tried not to shudder. He still had nightmares of that day. "That was Azula's work," he said quietly.

"No. _Azula_ was Zhao's work. She was the arrow but who was the archer? Or did she break herself out of a marble, underground, insulated cell?"

"With no concrete evidence, my hands are tied."

Aang swirled back – swirled fast, his body flying into a kata. The tapestry in the room flew to the ceiling and fell down with a crash. "Evidence!"

"In case you've forgotten," Zuko hissed, "I killed the only person who might have been able to tell us the truth."

This time the tapestry flew at Zuko. He just narrowly jumped out of the way. "Aang!" he snapped.

In two strides, Aang was standing at the door. He fire-bent it open – that was the only way – and fire-bent it shut behind him.

Mai, who had gone back to her letter, said absentmindedly, "Those drapes needed cleaning anyway."

Zuko turned on her. "Is that all you have to say?"

"Be thankful he didn't burn them."


	11. masks

_A/N: I am very excited about this chapter because it's a brand-new, never-before-seen chapter. :D There have been **a lot** of changes in the previous ones and old readers will really miss a lot of clues if they don't go back and re-read, but this is the first one that has completely original content (so to speak! LOL!) So please, please if you've been reading and keeping quiet because you were waiting for new content, I would really appreciate feedback on this chapter. Thanks in advance!_

* * *

**Chapter 11, masks**

The weeks leading up to the Carnival were almost as much a celebration as the night itself. As the Solstice drew nearer and the Sun hovered longer and longer on the horizon, the streets of the Fire Capital became livelier, the tourists more colorful, the wares in the markets more festive and over-priced.

The Song market was the most elite in the Capital and was patronized almost exclusively by staff from the Palace. It wasn't to Song that the Avatar and his companion strolled through, hand in hand, to all intents and purposes as carefree as any pair of honeymooning tourists from Ba Sing Se who had come to the Capital to celebrate the longest day of the year. They bought cheap masks and ate even cheaper fire crackers and they played the ridiculously expensive games and failed to win the cheap prizes.

It wasn't that unusual for Aang to walk freely amongst the people. It was a habit he had insisted on despite the Fire Lord's reticence and in truth, the _Avatar_ was in very little danger from mixing with his people. He had made a practice of it since he and the Fire Lord returned to the Capital and no longer caused a stir amongst the natives. But the Capital was populated with tourists now and they gasped and pointed at the sight of him. A few children were bold enough to walk up to him and he received them with a child-like grace that made him appear younger than his seventeen years. One hundred and seventeen years to be exact…

Once he looked up still grinning from a little girl who had been wearing a red-and-yellow mask with a familiar looking blue arrow in the middle and he caught the pensive gaze of Kya – Katara.

He asked her as soon as he got the chance. "What happened back there? That look on your face when I was talking to the Earth girl?"

"What look?"

He shrugged. "Hard to explain. As if you were trying to figure something out. As if you were trying to figure _me_ out."

"I'm always trying to figure you out," she said bluntly. "You're a mass of contradictions."

"I guess you expected me to yell at the kid and send her away crying. Or maybe that's asking too much from me. Perhaps I was supposed to eat her?"

She flinched. "I didn't say that."

Aang picked up an Ozai mask from a passing stall and twirled it between his fingers. The mask's likeness to the late and un-lamented Fire Lord was a wicked caricature: no matter what grievances Aang had against Ozai, the dead man had not looked like an ape-crocodile hybrid. But it made Aang smile.

"Are they supposed to sell these?" she asked, blatantly trying to change the topic.

"It's all in good fun," Aang said cheerily as he tried to pay for two. The elderly merchant completely refused to collect the Avatar's money and shooed the two of them away.

The masks were completely contraband, of course. Zuko would have a fit if Aang showed up in the Palace wearing one.

He slipped his own over his face. She laughed.

"Is this how I look to you? A monster?"

She stopped laughing. "What is wrong with you?" she snapped.

Aang shrugged again, removing the mask. "You tell me. Why did you look at me like that?"

"I wasn't looking at you like… any way. I was thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

"That's not important. Stop trying to pick a quarrel with me. If you want me to leave, then just say so."

"I don't want you to leave," he said quickly.

"Then…" She lifted her hands up helplessly and looked around. Their conversation wasn't loud but they were never out of constant scrutiny. Children hovered nearby, trying to catch the Avatar's eye. A group of Earth tourists were shopping at a near-by stall. One of them, a man in a Kyoshi mask was doing a bad job of not staring at them.

Aang clasped her hands in his, tucked her into his side and walked towards a quiet spot at the corner of the market square where statues of spirits were on display.

"I'm sorry," he said at last. "I'm… upset about something. It has nothing to do with you."

"Do you want to…?" Her voice trailed off. _Talk about it_.

He turned his head so that he could stare at her. She was looking fixedly at the statues in front of her and her profile was in stark relief to the glow of the setting sun. The uncompleted offer hung in the space between them. He wondered if she didn't complete it because she didn't want to impose…

Or because she didn't want to know.

He licked his lips, hesitated. "I could tell you about _him_." He fingered the mask in his hand. "Did you know that I killed him?"

She turned to look at him then, and in the flash in her blue eyes was something he understood at once. "Yes."

No matter what Aang may have done in the past, the murder of Ozai was not something she held against him.

He exhaled sharply, glanced away from her piercing blue eyes, and his gaze fell on the white and blue statue of Yue, the moon-spirit. Yue, who had formerly been the Princess of the Northern Water Tribe.

Until Zhao had killed the moon.

Zhao the Moon-Killer. Admiral Zhao who had invaded the Northern Water Tribe and enslaved half its people. Zhao who had probably killed Katara's Master Pakku.

Zhao who was Aang's first firebending _sifu_. The first person who had trained him in any element other than air. Who had taught him how to scheme, how to strategize, how to win.

Katara was looking at him, a question in her gaze. He slipped the mask over his face and took her arm. Wordlessly, they both walked away.

* * *

Narrowed eyes peered out from the eyes of a Kyoshi mask. The tall man in earth-toned clothes watched them go, his hands curled into fists by his side.

* * *

Fire Lady Mai was waiting for them when they arrived at the Palace. She did a double-take at the masks.

"Charming," she said drily.

Aang laughed. "I try."

"You try too hard." She gave the mask in Katara's hand a meaningful look.

"Oh come on, it's just harmless fun." Aang said with a smirk, but he collected Katara's mask all the same.

Katara looked at both of them askance. The Fire Lady gave her a swift, cipher-like smile and laid claim on Aang.

"A word, Avatar."

"Can't it wait?"

"No, it can't."

Aang stood his ground, staring at her with narrowed eyes, his arm firmly around Katara's waist. "What are you up to, Mai?"

"You'll know when you come with me," the Fire Lady retorted, through a smile that didn't hide the menace in her voice.

Aang hesitated. An impasse.

"Give your bird a little room to fly, Aang," the Fire Lady said, glancing at Katara with eyes that were surprisingly perceptive. "She's not going to disappear if you let her out of your sight for a moment."

He flushed. "I don't… I didn't…" He didn't look at Katara.

Lady Mai's meaningful gaze locked with Katara's and it was first surprise, then anger that washed through the water girl. With the swiftness of her element, she slipped out of Aang's grip.

"Katara… wait."

"Please don't let me keep you," she murmured, her head bowed so that he won't see the ire in her eyes.

She could see his hands reaching out for her, and the Fire Lady taking firm hold of them. "It won't take a minute, Aang. Really," Lady Mai said imperiously as she semi-dragged the man out of the antechamber. Katara looked up in time to see his last desperate attempt to catch her eye and she looked away.

She found her way to one of the public balconies and placed her clenched fist on the cool stone balustrade. _Is that what they all think I am? Some sort of concubine of the Avatar's? His latest whim?_ The evening breeze stung her cheeks and she brushed at her wet eyes impatiently. She held unto her anger with a steadfast mental grip: it would be the shield that she would raise to defend herself the next time she looked into stormy gray eyes and was tempted to lose her senses. It served her right to remember that this wasn't some sort of storybook romance she was living in. She had a mission to complete. There was no happy ending for her and Aang.

And she didn't want one.

"What are you doing here?"

Katara almost fell over the balcony. She spun round, her hand on her throat to stare at the tall dark figure standing in the shadows.

"Who is there?" She asked, almost shouting in her shock… and fear. It suddenly struck her how much time had passed – the night had truly fallen now – and how alone she was. Surprisingly alone. Usually there was a Palace guard standing by the doors of the common rooms; and there were always a pair of sentries patrolling the corridor outside the Avatar's private rooms. But not now. Now it was just her and the stranger in the shadows.

Her fingers reached for the water pouch that never left her side … and then clenched around it when the figure stepped into the twilight.

Fire Lord Zuko regarded her with a look that held no friendliness.

"My Lord," she said at once and bowed. It took an effort but she kept her face neutral. The last time she had seen the Fire Lord was the day Hama had announced to his court that the Avatar was healed. Katara had not spoken to the man; only stood in Hama's shadow as he regarded his friend in shocked joy, his breaking voice revealing more emotion than he must have cared to.

Than Katara had cared to see. She did not want to see these people's vulnerabilities. To feel that she ever could be sympathetic to them.

"What are you doing here?" The Fire Lord repeated, a tinge of impatience in his voice.

Except for a vague feeling of distrust, she had no idea what the Fire Lord thought of her. Apparently, she was about to find out.

What _Katara_ thought of the former Prince Zuko was a very different matter entirely. The anger that she had fanned only moments earlier sparked beneath her skin and she forced herself to release the water pouch in her grip before she succumbed to the great rage she knew she was capable of. It helped that she spoke to him with her head slightly bowed, so that she wasn't looking directly into his face.

"I am here at the Avatar's request, my Lord," she answered quietly.

"I am aware of that. I am also aware that one moment you ignore all summons to the Palace and the next, you appear as if you never intended to leave."

"My grandmother was ill. I had to attend to her."

"I hear that the innkeeper has been in good health for the past few moons."

_The spies. Of course. _"My Lord, she may have appeared to be in good health but that was not the case."

"Appearances can be misleading, can't they? Take you for example. To all _appearances_ a war immigrant from the North. But that's not all you truly are… Katara of the Southern Water Tribe."

Katara was glad that her face was already bowed and could not betray her. So the Fire Lord recognized her. Or did he? Perhaps he was just guessing. It had been five years. He could not have noticed her that day as anything more than another faceless water peasant that he was condemning to death.

"The Fire Lord has mistaken me for someone else."

"No, I have not." But there was the slightest hint of uncertainty in his voice.

She seized on that. It was imperative that she stayed beyond suspicion until she achieved what she set out for. "Everyone knows that there are no living Southern Water Tribe people. They were all destroyed by the Southern Razers on orders from Fire Lord Ozai in vengeance for giving the Avatar their hospitality." She said the words automatically; she had read the official reports so many times over that she knew the paragraphs by heart.

"A waterbender could have survived that raze. _You_ survived that raze."

"With all due respect, my Lord, I-"

"I've asked you before. I won't ask you again. Why. Are. You. Here?"

"I have already told you," she said, staring at him in surprise.

"Not how. Why," he said through gritted teeth. "What are you planning? What exactly are you intentions towards Aang?"

The waxing moon had come out now and she could see him clearly now. His face was filled with suspicion and irritation – and something else, something he probably didn't know was even there.

Fear.

_Interesting. _

Before she could stop herself, the poison slipped into her voice. "Intentions? He is the Avatar, the most powerful man in the world. Isn't that enough?"

His eyebrows went up then he smiled and she realized, too late, her mistake.

A real gold-digger would never have showed her hand.

"I hope for your sake that that is enough," he said in a smoothly, almost pleasantly. "For if the Avatar were to come to any harm through you, I promise you here and now that you will learn to see your people's death was an act of kindness. Do we understand each other?"

Katara was speechless. Rage had filled her vision, filled her throat with bile.

"Good day, _Kya_." He turned on his heel.

She had to blink hard, swallow hard to control herself. Her hands were curled into fists. It was strike with them or with her element or with words. But strike, she must or she would self-destruct.

"My Lord! A word, my Lord!"

The man halted, but didn't turn around.

"I am listening…"

"You're mistaking me for someone who doesn't exist. But let's suppose I really was this Katara from the South… let's suppose. Won't I wonder how Lord Zuko knows so much about a war crime that he's always claimed he had nothing do with? A crime that he has spoken publicly against, that he has always accused and attributed to his late father?"

He turned slightly, his face in profile and half in shadow. He didn't speak.

"Won't I be wondering at how he is so certain of who I am even though every soldier that participated in the Southern Razing was court-martialed and executed by the Lord Zuko himself shortly after he came to power?"

"You can wonder all you like," he said mildly. "I am not my father. I do not wish to control people's thoughts."

"And what about the Avatar's thoughts?" She hissed and was gratified at the way he started, turning swiftly on his heel to stare at her. "Perhaps _Katara_ could share some of her thoughts about the Southern Razing with him. According to you, she was there."

"Are you threatening me?" The pretense at civility had gone. He was furious.

She matched him glare for glare. "You haven't told him, have you?" She said astutely. "What would he think of you if he knows the truth?"

"You do not want to make an enemy out of me, you water rat," he snarled. "You think because you share his bed that you have some power over him? That you can threaten me? A more powerful woman than you tried that in the past and lived to regret it."

"You-"

"Let us be clear: _I am watching you. _Make one wrong move. Slip up once. Just give me one reason to think that you are a threat to him… and I will end you. Permanently."

"How dare you!" Angry tears had filled Katara's eyes and all she wanted to do was to lash out. Yue's power trembled beneath her fingers and she had _no idea_ where her self-control came from.

The Fire Lord turned on his heel, strolled away. His last words lingered behind him like a fume of venom.

"You have no idea what I dare or dare not do."


	12. scores

_A/N: Thanks for your patience, dear readers. New content continues and the plot thickens..._

* * *

**Chapter 12, scores**

_Dear Kya,_

_Thank you for your message. My health improves with every passing day and I have faith that it will be fully restored when Yue is at her fullest. Do not be anxious for me but save your strength to restore the Avatar fully. I have full confidence in you, my child. _

_The hen-ducks will lay in good time._

_Your loving grand-mother._

* * *

"Will you be coming?"

Katara sighed. Aang couldn't blame her. He had already asked her several times and the answer had not changed.

"I could stay," he offered, impulsively. Of course, Zuko would throw a fit and Mai would probably skewer him with her knives. She had dragged him away from Katara the other night to give him stern rules on how he was expected to comport himself this evening: his absence was not an option. But Aang would be damned if he'd pass up time with Katara for dinner with stodgy council members and the pampered brats they called their families.

But Katara shook her head. She sat by the window with her eyes on the moon. "No, please. I would like to be alone this evening."

He tried not to feel hurt by her words. Except for the rare interruption, they had literally been living in each other's personal spaces since she came to him. Of course, she would want a little breathing room.

It was not her fault that he didn't see the need for one.

"I'll miss you," he said, his words as tentative as the hand he placed on her back. The slight shiver that radiated from his touch pacified him a little; and she tilted her head back for a kiss.

It was long and sweet and tinged with desperation. Aang felt his chest clench. When they broke apart, her eyes were tortured.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked, urgently.

She shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together.

"I could stay," he offered again, desperately.

She shook her head firmly and pulled away from him, turning back to gaze out the window. He had no choice but to leave her though it almost killed him to do so.

* * *

Mai watched the Aang sulk through the dinner and wished she had arranged to sit next to him so that she could prod him with her heels. He had never been enthusiastic about the Palace dinner parties. One of the first things she could remember him saying to her was "no offence to Ursa, but what a bunch of old dunderheads call entertainment is not exactly my idea of good time". But he usually tried to make an effort. When Aang wanted to, he could charm the kimono off anyone.

Literally.

Now he barely lifted his eyes from his plate, ate the Palace chef's fine cooking as if he was chewing grass and only replied in monosyllables to the guests seated at either side of him, much to the disappointment of Qin's grand-daughter and Chan's niece and the Fire Lord who had insisted that the Avatar be seated between the two nubile girls who had clearly set their sights on him. Of course, Mai had rolled her eyes at the suggestion and told Zuko he was wasting his time. Unsurprisingly, she was right. At least she'd rather Aang be short with these rather silly girls than any of the actual Council members, some of whom could be notoriously touchy.

Mai smiled charmingly at young Taewoo and mentally reviewed the dinner program. After the third course, the party would break for the first entertainment of the evening: the Hoola dancers. After that, dinner would continue with two more courses. There'd be another break for entertainment – this time a melancholy rendition of some classic symphony – a return to dinner, and then a close. As was the custom, the Fire Lord and Lady would leave first and the remaining Council members would depart at their own time.

It was tradition and had been done this way for as long as anyone could remember. It was also incredibly, tediously boring.

At last, the guests migrated from the dining hall to the private arena where the dancers would be performing. It was an informal arrangement with people milling around in small groups around the open space for the dancers. A few guests even joined the dancers who good-naturedly humored the clumsy old men spoiling their pattern.

Aang stood in a dark corner, nursing his drink and giving 'do not approach' vibes to anyone who dared. No doubt, he was calculating how best to sneak out of the arena – and hopefully boycott the rest of the dinner. Not a chance, Mai thought grimly. If she couldn't check out of this then neither could he. She set off to corner him.

Zuko got there first.

"I see you came alone," the Fire Lord said in a characteristically bad attempt at subtlety. Mai knew he was fishing to find out if the water girl had told Aang about Zuko's disastrous conversation with her.

A disastrous and ill-advised conversation that Zuko had insisted on and that Mai was still cringing inwardly for orchestrating.

"Congratulations on stating the obvious, Zuko," Aang snapped.

"Don't take it out on me if your date turned you down," Zuko retorted, relaxing now that it was clear Aang was still in the dark. He caught Mai's eyes and smiled.

Mai loved her husband but sometimes he made her wonder.

She rolled her eyes and took a glass from a passing waiter. "As always, Aang, you're the life of the party," she drawled.

"I can wear my new mask, if you like," he retorted. "That should liven things up."

Mai snorted.

"What new mask?" Zuko asked suspiciously.

"Just a little something I picked up from the market," Aang said, with shifty eyes. "Don't spoil the surprise, Mai."

Zuko was rounding on her, no doubt to badger out the secret from her when a loud voice broke into the small tête-à-tête.

"Shouldn't you all be mingling? You won't want to alienate the rest of the populace now, would you? My lady, the dinner is splendid."

Mai smiled aloofly and lifted her hand to be kissed. As the interloper bent his graying head over her fingers, she toyed with the idea of flicking her wrist just _so_, sending her blade through his jaws and effectively sealing his trap shut permanently.

Ah, daydreams.

"Admiral Zhao," she said coolly, "how nice of you to join us."

Zhao stood pompous and smirking before them. "I suspected my invitation was misplaced and I knew you would miss me sorely."

"How unfortunate," she murmured. "I hope you didn't face any difficulties getting past the Palace Guards."

"Fortunately, my name was on the guest list. It was just the mix-up with the invitations. Imagine that? But I'm here now." He gave her a smile that was as fake as her own and turned to Zuko. "Your Highness." His bow was deep and correct and completely mocking.

Zuko stood straight, the mask and persona of Fire Lord firmly in place. "Zhao."

"And the Ava-" Zhao's eyes bulged.

Mai looked around in surprise: Aang was nowhere to be seen. She took one look at Zhao's face, then at her husband's face and quickly schooled her own into blankness.

The expression Zhao's face was priceless. He could be a brilliantly manipulative worm when he set his mind to it but his pride would always be his weakness. Being snubbed was the surest way to get to him and no one knew this better than Aang.

Mai lifted her fan to hide a discreet smile.

"If you'll excuse us, Admiral Zhao." She slipped her hand through her husband's elbow and turned her back on the irate has-been. "We have some mingling to do."

* * *

It wasn't that Katara had wanted to leave. She just wanted to see if she could.

She had gone to see Appa and found the bison asleep. After a few minutes walking around the grounds, she decided to test the theory she had formed the evening she had encountered the Fire Lady.

Katara had barely made it half-way across the grounds when a round-faced girl with sparkling eyes had literally popped out of nowhere to intercept her. The girl, who looked strangely familiar, had all but pounced on Katara, grasping her firmly by the hand, and walking her back into the Palace, all the while screeching something about her excitement at meeting Kya finally!

"What are you-?"

"But you must come! Everyone wants to meet you, I'm sure and the Fire Lady will _love _to have you there, even though you really ought to have dressed my formally but no one will mind, I think."

"Excuse me, I really must…"

"But the dinner isn't quite over yet and I hear the food is really delicious and there'll be singing and dancing and acrobatics, I hope, from the trope that'll perform at the Carnival, I hear and Madam Taewoo can talk about healers all day long!"

The creature couldn't seem to _stop prattling_ and Katara was greatly tempted to strangle her with a water whip. She barely paused for breath, or even a reply, just kept on a running, _random_ monologue about 'Kya's' acclaimed healing powers, the dinner party guest list, the coming Fire Carnival, and Kya should let her know anytime if she was boring her…

"Oooh, did you see that?"

Katara was so surprised to hear – or rather not hear – a pause in the conversation that she stopped walking. She would have stumbled into the smaller girl who had never let go of her gentle but firm grasp of Katara's hand; but the impish creature just hopped to the side.

"What?"

"Did you see _that_?"

Katara realized with a shiver of alarm that rather than the few rooms she thought they had passed through, all this while the chatterbox had been leading her deeper and deeper into the Palace. They were now standing in a completely unfamiliar wide pillared hall with portraits of what must have been old Fire Lords staring down at them. The portraits were very lifelike. . In the glow of the burning torches, they stared down at Katara with eyes that almost seemed knowing. She shivered.

She was right in the heart of the Fire Palace. She could feel how far away any large body of water must be. Which allies did she have here, apart from her dubious connection to the Avatar? A connection that, she realized suddenly, could make her very dangerous to any number of people…

"Well did you?"

Katara turned on the girl that lured her here; ready to strike, to defend herself with anything she had… "What?"

"That!"

Katara's eyes followed the pointing finger. She made out the men standing at the other end of the hall in front of a set of enormous doors. A small crowd of well-dressed aides stood in front of the pair of the straight-backed Palace Guards positioned on either side of the door.

"What am I supposed to see?" She asked, tensing. All she was seeing were more potential enemies.

"That's Chan, the Admiral's son! Don't you recognize him?" The girl preened as she lurched forward, still dragging Katara along.

Katara was so shocked, outraged, and completely befuddled that they were already before the young men before she knew it.

Then two things happened at once.

Crazy Chatterbox, as Katara was beginning to label mentally, preened in front of her target, a lanky man who was looking at her with interest. "Hi, Chan!"

The doors opened and a crowd of distinguished looking people stepped out. They appeared to be in family groups, all richly decorated and clearly the Fire Nation's elite.

It was then it clicked. The dinner party. It was over then. These were the guests filing out. Any moment now and Aang himself would appear.

The tension of battle left Katara – to be replaced by apprehension of another kind. She did not want to meet Aang amongst these people, these Fire Nation elite. She did not want to be formally introduced by him to them, to see the question in their eyes or hear the calculation in their voices. Even though he did not push for it, she knew this kind of public claiming was precisely what Aang wanted and he would not pass up this opportunity.

She tuned out Chatterbox's conversation with the Chan boy; her eyes seeking out a glimpse of Aang so that she could turn make herself disappear – somehow. Somewhere in the middle of her flirtation, Chatterbox had let Katara go and the water girl desperately looked for an opportunity to escape. Most of the outpouring guests were too preoccupied with herding their families and their own conversations to notice her but a few sent curious glances her way.

A tall man with a distinctive beard was one of the last out, talking to the elderly woman beside him. His gaze fell on Katara as he passed. Then he stopped abruptly and whirled at her.

Admiral Zhao. The Moon Killer.

Katara used to wonder what she would do if she ever met him again.

All thoughts of escape melted away.

* * *

"That went well," Mai said.

Zuko grunted, his eyes fastened on the scroll that had been waiting for them when they retired early from the dinner.

Mai shrugged, knowing he would tell her what it contained in good time. She removed the last of the long needles from her hair and carefully shook her black mane free, running her fingers gingerly through the strands to make sure that none remained. The wallet on her table where she collected her 'tools' every night told her that her inventory was complete; but it was force of habit to make doubly sure. It would be… embarrassing, to put it mildly, if she injured herself with her own weapons.

"This is getting out of hand."

She turned to see her husband, sitting at the edge of their bed, the scroll open in his hand and a scowl on his face.

She took the parchment from him and half-way through reading it, slowly lowered herself to sit beside him.

"Do you have confirmation that the Lady is unharmed?" She asked sharply.

"She is. This is actually an old report. Check the date."

She did, sighed with relief.

"I noticed that security allocation for the Regent of Ba Sing Se increased last month," he continued. "Now I know why."

"As always, the Dai Li's usefulness to us is a shade too little, too late," Mai said wryly.

"As always, my mother is so indifferent to me that she couldn't be bothered to tell me that someone tried to kill her."

Mai put her hand on his shoulder; he covered it briefly with his own and she could almost feel when the bitter grief turned to anger. "If these rebels wanted me to take them seriously, then they just succeeded."

* * *

The woman with whom Zhao was speaking had paused for a moment, then discretely walked on. The rest of his companions followed, sending curious glances behind them before they disappeared down the long hallway. In a short moment, the hallway was quiet and empty except for Zhao, Katara and the statue-like Palace Guards.

Katara barely noticed this, barely noticed anything but the man – the monster – before her. Everything she had ever felt for Admiral Zhao, Murderer Extraordinaire, had risen within her and was burning in her eyes.

He was not the one on whom she blamed for everything – that role was already cast for the Avatar – but she would never forget, nor would she ever forgive…

_("Where's Yugoda? Where are my sisters?" _

"_Don't worry. You'll get your turn…" _

"_What does that…? Where is Master Pakku? What did you do to him?" _

"_Why so concerned about that old man when you have me?"_

"_Don't touch me! Don't you dare!" _

"_Silly girl. Of course, I dare.")_

Zhao blanched. "Do I know you?"

"Do. You?" Katara whispered. There were still some nights to the full moon. The nearest body of water was far away from her reach.

All these things were utterly irrelevant.

_I am going to make you pay._

Her left arm flew out in a wide curve, her fingers curling. The moisture pulled out of the dry air and came to her. Her right hand flew in front of her face and the water froze into a solid ice wall that blocked Zhao's blast of flame before it reached her.

"What is this? An assassination attempt in the Palace?" Zhao roared and blasted her with fire.

She turned it into steam, and sent the hot spray at him. He pushed through the sting and blasted at her again. She fell. He jumped, falling to her, with flames rising from his feet; and this time, she bent the steam until it was pointed like an arrow. When it hit him, he yowled and fell back. "You witch!"

Katara was already on her feet, barely thinking, just moving, anger fueling her almost as powerful as the moon itself, her bending flawless and precise as she advanced on him.

Admiral Zhao, Torturer of Old Men, was about to rue the day he first crossed paths with Katara of the Southern Water Tribe.

She dodged Zhao's flares, and rushed him, pulling water and cooling it into blades, flinging them at him in a continuous barrage, faster than he could dodge, than he could block, than he could fire-bend away.

He backed right into the door and a series of blades pinned him against the paneled wood. One pierced though his shoulder and he screamed. It was amazing how gratifying his pain sounded in her ears! He raised his hands to fire blast at her and she trapped his arms on either side of his body.

Then, not forgetting, she turned on the Palace guards, daring them to stop her.

They stared straight ahead, as silent and motionless as the statues they appeared to be. Apparently, their protection did not extend to Zhao.

Pacified, she turned back to Zhao. He was glaring at her, trying to disguise the fear that was clear in his eyes.

"You remember me, don't you?"

Zhao leered. "Should I?"

She slapped him. Twice. Grabbed his face with her hand and smashed it hard against the door for good measure.

He winced, and the leer vanished but he remained silent.

"You do, don't you?" Katara asked again, pressing one finger firmly against his jaw. The anger was fast draining from her, leaving behind a well of hatred deep enough for her to drown him in. Hama had shown her how to use the fundamentals of healing to achieve the opposite. The chi-path in his jaw shifted under her finger until his tooth popped.

He was screaming by the time it did and it flew out of his mouth.

"How many do I have to pull out?" She growled.

"I remember you!" Zhao spat. "So what? There's nothing you can do about it, water peasant. You dare not touch me in the Fire Palace!"

The second tooth popped out before Katara realized it. Over his screams, she shouted, "I have touched you, you fool! And now, I am going to end you."

She stepped back, centered herself, let the hate rise in her until it was like a black waterfall ready to explode, and it came to her – every droplet of moisture in the air coalescing over her head to form a single ice spear.

Her hands lifted and the spear started spinning around its center.

Zhao's eyes widened. She could see her own furious reflection in them. She could _taste _his fear.

Katara _used_ to wonder what she would do if she ever again met Admiral Zhao, Moon-Killer, Torturer of Old Men, Violator of Little Girls, and Murderer Extraordinaire.

_You will never know how lucky you are that I did not find you on the night of the full moon. _

Her hands lifted again –

- and pain like nothing she had ever felt blossomed in her spine, in her sides, in the base of her neck, as her chi-paths were swiftly, efficiently blocked.

The ground came up to meet her, strong arms caught her and the world went black.

* * *

_TBC! _

_Please review. And don't forget to visit the 'Discuss Waterblooded' forum (link in my profile) if you have a spoilerish speculation to share. :D_


	13. impasse

_A/N: This is the longest chapter so far in the story and the most difficult for me to write. You can tell from how long it's taken me to update. I was also in a car accident early this year. I won't go into details but chapter twelve could easily have been the last chapter ever published of Waterblooded. I think the horror of leaving this story uncompleted kept me going. So don't worry, dear readers. The days of long hiatuses have finally come to an end. Waterblooded is near completed and I will be updating very regularly from henceforth._

* * *

**Chapter 13, impasse**

In appreciation of the great service given to the Fire Nation, Admiral Zhao had been awarded an exclusive estate on Ember Island by the late and un-lamented Fire Lord Ozai.

Aang had never been there before. He had a vague idea of Zhao's home as a metal castle with deep dungeons standing alone on a very small island, possibly surrounded by a crate of boiling water and guarded twenty-four/seven by fully-armored Zhao-lots.

But instead of being received by military thugs, the Avatar was apprehended by white plumed rabbit-peacocks that rose to meet him as he glided over the Island. The 'castle' was a hamlet of wooden cabins tucked into the far corner of the Island (not surrounded by boiling water but serene blue sea) and blending flawlessly with the surrounding nature.

Well, the fact that Zhao lived there was enough to make any place horrid, Aang decided as he landed on the sand-swept courtyard and collapsed his glider.

He could smell cool, salty water and experienced one of the rare occasions of relative coolness in the Fire Nation.

He had come with a half-formed plan of charging into the building, shouting Zhao's name as he glided from room to room. But that plan had needed the building to be a castle (surrounded by boiling water, etc) so instead, he waved to the departing birds, strolled up the low steps in front of the largest cabin and paused at the open door.

Finding Zhao so quickly was yet one more thing to throw Aang. The man knelt in front of a ring of candles, their flames rising and falling steadily.

"Admiral Zhao."

The flames dimmed. "Avatar Aang, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

Zhao turned as he spoke, rising to his feet. He was wearing his robe loose over plain pants and the bandages on his chest and wrists were plain to see. Aang didn't notice them. He was too busy studying the ones across Zhao's head and jaw.

Zhao smirked. "Forgive me for my casual apparel. Little did I know that I would be entertaining the Avatar today . There's also the small fact that I'm still recovering from an attempt on my life. Has the Fire Lord sent you to finish the job?"

Clearly, the unexpected lack of heat must have done something to Aang's brain. A moment ago, he had almost felt sorry for Zhao.

"You're so full of crap," he snapped. "Zuko didn't send anyone to kill you and you know it."

"I have no _proof_ of the Fire Lord's involvement."

Aang gritted his teeth at the sly implication of the words. It was the lack of proof that made things even more damning for Zuko and they all knew it. Rumors were more deadly to the new Fire Lord than truth. And Aang had no intention of letting Katara be sacrificed for either man's agenda.

"So what did Zuko send his errand-boy to me for?"

Reflexively, Aang's free hand touched his tunic, feeling the parchment resting between the cloth and his skin, then let his hand fall again. "Zuko didn't send me. I'm here because, as usual, Zuko's too in love with his New Order to get his hands dirty. _He_ actually managed to convince me why I shouldn't squash you like the vulture mosquito that you are otherwise we wouldn't even be having a conversation right now."

Zhao fluttered his hands in mock-terror. "A monk threatening me. What would your Masters say?"

Red flashed across Aang's eyes and the candle flames – which had stopped rising and falling in rhythm and had been flickering steadily in the slight breeze – suddenly flared.

The damnable man tut-tutted. "As always, your temper is deplorable."

"Keep talking and I'll forget why keeping you alive seems like the right thing to do," Aang snarled.

"I'll tell you why," Zhao said, his smirk slipping and his eyes flashing. "Your Fire Lord can't touch me because the old Admirals own the hearts and souls of almost every soldier in the entire Fire Nation Armed Forces, and he knows it. I have resources that he hasn't even begun to discover and all I need is to say the word, and his Palace of cards and this ridiculous peace will fall crashing on his head."

He was breathing hard by the time he finished and the candle flames had risen so high that the room was unbearably hot.

"A student is only as good as his Masters, _Sifu_ Zhao," Aang said sweetly. Suddenly, he was feeling so much better.

Zhao's fists clenched and his face worked as the realization of what he said and to whom dawned on him. When he finally spoke, his words were slow and careful. "I, like any other member of his esteemed Council, may have reservations against the Fire Lord's policies. But I remain his obedient servant and all my resources are used in his service."

Aang laughed. "Smooth. Tell it to someone who doesn't hate your guts."

"Did you come to my home to insult me, you manner-less little freak?"

"No. I came to your home to tell…" He touched the parchment again, then took a deep breath, forced the words to form "… to ask you to withdraw all your accusations against Ka-Kya, the healer and settle your differences peaceably with her."

The scowl on Zhao's face morphed into a sneer. "Ah, I should have realized. You've come to save the Water tribe girl. What is she to you, Avatar Aang?"

"That's none of your business."

"But it is everyone's business when the Fire Nation's champion's mistress is a dangerous criminal. Now I truly believe that Zuko didn't send you here. Even he wouldn't be so stupid as to sacrifice his pride for a mere woman."

Aang's face was heating up, but it was with anger not embarrassment. "Listen to me, Zhao-"

"Why should I listen to a man who is beholden to one of my former slaves? " Like the vulture that he was, he quickly pounced on the surprise that must have flickered on Aang's face. "Or… didn't she tell you that, Avatar Aang?" his sneer widened. "No, she didn't. How much exactly do you know about your little whore?"

The candles went out. The Admiral was fast, falling to the floor, sweeping the ground with his leg, flames flashing with the friction.

The Avatar was faster. The flames had barely reached him before the sweep of his glider sent them out with a gust of wind. Another sweep and Zhao went spinning across the floor, sending the candles scattering. He hit the floor with a loud thud and an even louder groan.

Aang bent over the old man, and he only just managed to keep the hot flames in his stomach and not come pouring out with his words. "As you said, I have a deplorable temper."

"You're going to regret this." Zhao gasped, one hand pressing against the bandage on his chest. The other hand groped the floor for purchase as he struggled to sit. He was pathetic.

"You said that to me four years ago. I didn't regret it then. I certainly didn't regret it when you sent Azula after me last month."

Something other than pain flashed across the older man's face. "You're crazy. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"One of us is crazy, that's true. Crazy for thinking he still has a chance to take me and Zuko down."

"You are mad! What proof do you have of that…?" He was leaning against the wall now, both hands against his chest. The bandages on his wrists were darkening.

"I'm the Avatar. I don't need proof. Whether you believe it or not, it's Zuko that has kept you alive this long."

"You'll only kill me on Zuko's orders, right? Just like you did Ozai." The smirk was grotesque in his twisted face. "Who would have thought that sweet little boy that didn't even know there was a war would grow up to be the Fire Nation's attack dog?"

He made a fist with his left hand and the smirk vanished from Zhao's face. In a moment, he was gasping, his hands fluttering around his throat, fighting off the invisible wedge that stopped his air. Aang's fist was so tight that the knuckles were popping and now Zhao's body was jerking wildly as his red face turning increasingly darker, his eyes bulging with anger, with fear, and then with defiance…

The hot rage in Aang's belly was quenched by a sudden gust of cold spite. His fingers fell open. Zhao slumped back to the ground, wheezing painfully.

"Will you withdraw your accusations?" He asked quietly. He removed the parchment from his pocket and placed it in front of the older man.

Zhao glared at him in mutinous silence, hatred pouring at of his eyes.

It was Aang's turn to start smirking.

* * *

Katara opened her eyes suddenly, falling out of unconsciousness as abruptly as if she had jumped.

"You'd better not –"

Too late. She had already tried to sit up. Mistake. Pain racked her spine and it seemed like a good idea to collapse back on the soft bed.

A soft bed with red sheets and a red blanket that had fallen to her waist when she sat up. The ceiling above was maroon-colored and from the span of her rather limited vision – even turning her neck was painful – so were the four walls around her. There was no visible door. Neither was there a jug or shallow basin or any sign of even a single drop of water.

This wasn't Aang's room then with the white sheets, huge windows and billowing curtains. This may not even be in the Fire Palace at all. The memory of the fight with Zhao flashed though Katara's mind as suddenly as her break from slumber had and fear gripped her with all four fists.

"You're still in the Fire Palace," said that same familiar voice, as if in answer to her unspoken question.

Katara's view of the ceiling was suddenly obliterated by the round face of Crazy Chatterbox.

Or not so Crazy after all… Katara remembered chi-paths blocking… Her body collapsing… Instinctively, she reached out for her element, trying to sense it and a sharp spasm racked through her body. Choking the words out through the pain, she cried, "You! What did you do to me?"

Crazy Chatterbox grinned widely, her face almost split into two. "That was neat, wasn't it? No one ever sees that coming." She slipped out of sight and Katara could feel from the shift of weight on the bed that she had sat down beside her. "You'd better not move right now. I pushed some points a few minutes ago so you don't hurt me or yourself."

Fear gripped harder. "You've paralyzed me…" Katara whispered.

Chatterbox leaned over her and Katara saw that the grin had given way to a frown. "Don't be silly," she said. "You'll be perfectly fine in a day or two."

Katara closed her eyes and fought back tears of relief.

"Why would I want to do that?" Chatterbox went on, sounding increasingly annoyed. "I like you even if you are a bit crazy" – Katara's eyes flew open as she gaped – "but that sort of makes you interesting, doesn't it? Besides, I can't blame you for wanting to do what you did, I mean who hasn't wanted to? It's such a shame that I couldn't just let you kill him even though Mai thinks I ought to have, but really, what would it look like if Admiral Zhao was murder-"

"Where is Zhao?" Katara asked at once.

Chatterbox shrugged. "I dunno. When you went down, your ice knives – That was really cool by the way, the aiming I mean, not the bending. Mai's the only person I know who can use knives-"

"Just answer the question!"

"I'm trying to," Chatterbox said, frowning. "Stop interrupting. _As I was saying_, your knives melted and Zhao got free and I guess he was going to kill you, so I took him down. Then I brought you here and sent a message to Fire Lord Zuko about what happened and of course, he wasn't pleased about that. And well, the Avatar came to see you and he wasn't pleased with me at all."

Katara just in time bit back the question that had sprung to her lips.

"… I've been stuck here, just waiting for you to get up for the past three days…"

_Three days!_ Katara shivered.

Chatterbox paused mid-chatter. "Are you cold?" She pulled the blanket up to Katara's chin.

"Am I in prison?"

"Of course not!" Chatterbox sounded shocked. "What would the Avatar think? But obviously, you aren't going anywhere until the Fire Lord deals with the whole mess and maybe Mai's right and it would have been better if Zhao were dead because Wow, what a mess. The Avatar was really angry with me about the whole disabling thing, and he was sooo worried about you," she added suddenly. Katara's startled eyes caught the mischievous grin. "When he wasn't fighting with Zuko, he would come here and sit with you and just look at you."

The friendly grin made Katara furious, reminded her even more than her aching body that this apparently guileless girl had attacked her on the sly, prevented her from taking her revenge against Zhao, and paralyzed her if only temporarily. She turned her gaze back to the dark red ceiling above, feeling more lonely and alienated than she had in five years.

The chatter of her companion dimmed to a dull monotony in the background of Katara's darker thoughts. To have come so close only to have been thwarted was bitter medicine to drink. Even though it was the purest of chances that had brought Zhao in her path, shame still filled Katara at the thought of what Hama would have to say about her failure. What Hama would have to say about all her failures so far?

'_You are in love with the Avatar.'_ Old Hama's words, spoken softly, now sounded harsh and mocking in Katara's mind.

No.

The Avatar's face, eyes dark and intense suddenly loomed in her mind and Katara's soul shrank within her in horror.

_No! Oh Yue, __please no! _

Reflexively, her hands reached for the blankets, ignoring the pain in a desperate effort to hide herself from her own feelings. Her hands _were_ trembling, but it was no longer just pain. She felt sick, feverish.

Chatterbox had sprung up from the bed, and reappeared again with another sheet. She patted it around Katara, still prattling a hundred words to a second (now about something about the murkiness of Katara's aura of all things). Katara watched her, needing to fill her mind with something, anything other than her thoughts. She desperately wanted to close her eyes and sleep but she was afraid of the face she would see, the memories that she would remember. There was a moment when Chatterbox's hands passed over hers; Katara glanced up and the two locked gazes.

There was a serenity in Chatterbox's large eyes that could almost pass for kindness.

* * *

The scroll flew across the room and Mai plucked it out of the air a split-second before it would have slapped across Zuko's face.

Zuko looked up from the desk, startled, to see Aang walking towards him slowly.

"Where have you been?" he snapped. "We've been worried sick. You know you're not well enough to fly…"

The parchment hovered before his eyes. He stared at the words, then at the unmistakable seal at the bottom of the page, then at the Avatar who was now standing before him.

That maniacal grin was frighteningly familiar.

"He did this of his own free will?"

Aang's eyes shifted to what seemed like Zuko's left ear. "Eventually."

"What did you do?" Zuko asked in mounting horror.

Impossibly, Aang's grin widened.

"Do you really want to know?" Mai asked quietly.

Zuko stared the parchment again, then at Aang and nodded. "Yes, I think I do."

"I persuaded him. He won't be making accusations against Katara – or you – anymore. Once again, I've done your dirty work for you. Don't fall over yourself thanking me."

"_My_ dirty work? She attacked him in the Fire Palace!"

"If anyone deserves to be beaten to a pulp, it was Zhao."

"It might have been simpler if she had just killed him," Mai said sotto voce. "Less complicated for everyone."

Zuko shot her a glare. "The whole point of winning the war was to stop people from killing other people just because they don't like them."

Mai shrugged. Aang laughed.

Zuko was furious at the both of them. "You've made no secret of the bad blood between you two and the whole world knows whose side I'll choose if I have to. Your mistress attacks him and she doesn't even stand a private trial. How did you _persuade_ Zhao not to use this Agni-sent opportunity to discredit me?" A completely disastrous idea entered his head and he gasped in horror. "_Did you kill him, Aang?_"

Aang did look at him then. His face was filled with contempt. "I find your lack of faith very disturbing." He turned on his heels with a snap and left the room as sedately as he entered it.

Leaving behind him a rather speechless Fire Lord. Zuko clutched the parchment in his hand; struggled against the urge to go after Aang and demand that he tell him what in Hell he had done with Zhao…

Mai's hand on his shoulder steadied him – a little. "Of course he didn't kill him, Zuko. The Avatar is rash, not stupid. Alas, Zhao is not dead, just very angry."

"An angry Zhao is a dangerous Zhao! Have you forgotten what happened the last time Aang humiliated him? "

"Azula is dead. No one else is crazy enough to try to assassinate the Avatar."

Zuko flinched and he looked away. As always, the memory of his sister filled him with anger and pain and confusion.

Mai's voice softened. "Zuko, an angry Admiral is better than an angry Avatar. What do you think Aang would have done if he found out your plan to throw his mistress to the dogs?"

"I wasn't going to _throw_ her," he said testily. "She would have been tried privately and done a few weeks in the Boiling Rock at worst. If I had tried to protect her, it would have given credence to Zhao's accusations."

"Zhao would have persisted with the rumors whatever you did. And you _are_ stupid, Zuko, if you believe that Aang would have sat quietly and let that woman be put in prison for a day."

"Aang would have understood."

Mai gave him a look.

"Yes, he would! He's the symbol of peace and justice or have we all forgotten that? His mistress was the offender here."

"Open your eyes, Zuko. That woman is important to him. The sooner you realize that, the better for you."

"No, Mai. The sooner _Aang_ realizes that that woman is dangerous, the better for us all."

Mai sighed.

* * *

Chatterbox had delivered her to the Avatar's rooms and left with a sly smile. Katara could not find it within herself to be annoyed. After a few days of the other woman's company, she had formed a sort of – not affection – understanding for her.

Aang was waiting b y the large windows, dressed in casual Fire Nation robes, his hands clasped behind his back. It was nighttime and the full moon's light shone through his clothes. The whole effect was enough to make her breath catch. Not for the first time, she cursed her own weakness.

"Hello."

She clasped her shaking hands before her and bowed. He started, then returned the formal greeting.

"How are you?" He seemed as awkward as she did, apparently as unable to move from where he stood as she was.

She nodded, tried to speak, cleared her throat and tried again. "I'm fine."

"Were you treated well? I – I came when you were unconscious. I don't know if Ty Ming told you…"

"She did." Katara didn't care that he hadn't come again after that and that she had only Ty Ming's occasional company while she gradually recovered the use of her limbs.

"I-I would have come to see you, but I needed to be somewhere else for something. Y-you understand that, don't you?"

"Of course, I do."

He stared at her as if he didn't believe her. Then he walked to her, took her hands in his own. As always, his nearness made things within her unravel and her gaze fell. Her trembling fingers looked small and dark in his warm grip. She fought against the lump in her throat.

"Your hands are cold." He held them firmly, peered down to look into her face. "Are you OK? Did they treat you well?"

Katara nodded, swallowing hard before she could speak. "She did. I'm fine."

He let go of her hands to pull her into his arms. She let him, wrapping her arms around him and holding on tight. Her head fitted just under his chin and she could hear the rapid pounding of his heartbeat against her ear.

"I'm sorry I didn't come. I promise I would have stayed if I could. I needed to…" She felt him shrug. "It doesn't matter." His hand was on her hair, brushing it down with unbelievably soothing strokes. "I missed you so much."

_No. No._ It was happening all over again. Lost in his arms, she was falling. She reached for her dual anchors of anger and hate and clung desperately.

She pulled away a little. "Admiral…" She spat out the title and couldn't bring herself to say the name. "Ty Ming told me that he…"

Aang chuckled, the sound echoing through her heart. "Yeah, I _persuaded_ him to accept your apology."

Katara pulled away completely, trembling still but this time with rage. "_My apology_?"

Aang stepped back, studied her with a slight frown on his face. "Ka- you attacked him. In front of witnesses."

"I told you what he did to the Northern Tribe! To my master!"

"It was a time of war. People on both sides did horrible things."

She could barely believe what was happening. The things he was saying. She didn't know what she felt more strongly: sheer disbelief or revulsion. "How can you say that?"

He sighed. "The peace treaties are based on reconciliation, not justice. If it was justice the world wanted, the war would never have ended."

"Reconciliation? All nations united under the banner of the Fire Nation?"

"It's a start," he said firmly.

He believed it, she realized with mounting horror. He truly believed it. She had lied to herself and tried to convince herself and all this while…

"People d-died… I-Innocent people and you, the A-Avatar, _you say this_…"

"You might not understand it now, Katara, but you will one day: in war, no one is ever innocent."

Oh, she certainly wasn't falling now. She wasn't confused or conflicted. She was firmly standing on her anchors and at this moment, she hated him so much that everything she had ever felt before paled in comparison.

"You say that it was war. That people on both sides did horrible things."

"Katara, you should-"

"_What __horrible things did __the Air Nomads__ do_?"

Aang had been reaching for her and now, he froze mid-speech, mid-stride as blood drained from his face.

"How. Dare. You."

There was a gust of wind in the room that wasn't there a moment ago and the ground beneath her feet was suddenly less steady. The air around him crackled like the sky before a storm, and she would have been afraid of his rage if her own hadn't completely blinded her.

"How dare _you_ ask Zhao to forgive me? How dare you talk to me about treaties and reconciliation like if I was … You have no idea… no idea what this war has cost me!"

"Then tell me!" He roared, and the windows flew open with a loud bang. "Tell me! All I've ever done is try to understand you! You don't want to know me! You keep secrets, you hide the truth, you lie to me-"

"You don't deserve the truth! You don't deserve anything! You were supposed to save the world but you betrayed it. You betrayed everyone! You betrayed me and I hate you! I hate you and I hate myself for being in love with you!"

The storm died as abruptly as it began. Aang stood in the centre of it, staring at her as if she had just killed him.

Her hands flew to her mouth but it was too late. The words were out and they could not be unsaid.

* * *

_TBC! _

_Please review. And don't forget to visit the 'Discuss Waterblooded' forum (link in my profile) if you have a spoilerish speculation to share. :D_


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